This post contains affiliate links.

In our family, the day after Christmas begins the season of birthdays. We have about a total of 8 birthdays in 5 weeks. It's pure craziness. I had 5 birthday parties in a matter of 2 weeks alone, thus being, January is pretty nuts for me. :) I shared with you the Unicorn birthday party a few weeks ago. Today, I'm sharing with you a Mermaid or Under The Sea party. I went more along the mermaid lines, but my daughter really wanted an under the sea party, so I threw in some other things to make her happy. In general, I think they all work together and she loved it all. 

First off, let's talk about the cake. I made two similar cakes, about 5 days apart....I don't suggest ever doing this unless you are making money doing it :) lol

 Technically, my intention was to do both of them like the first picture, but mommy/stress brain won and I totally forgot to make it domed shape for the first party. But, I do love how both of them turned out. 

I'm just going to do a quick walk through of how I made the mermaid tail cake from the first picture. I used two boxed cake mixes. One placed in an 8 inch spring form pan and the other in a barbie dress mold...essentially shaped like a dome. You'll notice in one of the pictures below that I had somewhat of a cavern from the dome mold and filled that up with blue sixlets for a surprise middle. I then used some buttercream frosting for in between the two cakes. I shaped the bottom layer to the continuing angle of the dome. 

 I then did a crumb coat on the outside with buttercream.

 I cut out two mermaid tales on my Silhouette. You can find these in the Silhouette store. One is on glitter card stock, the other is just normal craft paper. If I did it again, I would do both on the glitter card stock. 

 I then taped two sticks onto the back of the glitter card stock.

 Then glued the other piece to the back.

 I trimmed the bottom part a little to make it look good on the top of the cake and staked it in there.

 I then used a marshmallow fondant recipe I have had for years (you can find these all over pinterest), and made 4 colors of 1 inch circles. I made about the same amount of pink, white and green and just few purples for accent.

 I then started from the top by the tale and randomly filled in the cake with the circles.

 When I got to the bottom, some circles were going to have to be cut to fit and it left a hot looking mess.

 So, using a star tip and the buttercream, I just piped some frosting along the bottom edge to finish it off.

 Here's a picture of the inside with the sixlets. 

And the complete cake again. This is one of those cakes that you'll want to make the day before the party so you actually get a chance to enjoy all your hard work for more than just 20 minutes :) ...trust me, I've learned my lesson on that. 

 And for the rest of the party decor and food. Here's the tablescape. 

 I used a decorative net as my table runner and placed sea glass flat marbles all over it. 

 I decorated the wall with mint streamers and balloon 'bubbles' on the ceiling line. The artwork says "Mermaid kiss and starfish wishes" which I found from Hobby Lobby. They actually had a lot of mermaid type decor. It was great!

On the wall, I also made a giant mermaid tail out of tissue pom pom balls. I just taped these right up on the wall in between the water 'streamers'.

 For the favor bags, I went simple and used white gift bags and tied mint and pink ribbons on them. I knew there were going to be a few boys at the party, so I just did their's with mint. I should have taken a picture of the loot, but didn't. I used bracelets, rings, necklaces, fake colored clip-in braids, and nail polish in the girls. And for the boys, I went simpler and did bubbles and cars.

 I was also going for a bubble theme with the favor table with the white lanterns if you didn't guess that already :) 

 Now for the other food. I tend to go way overboard when it comes to food. My husband advised me to calm it down this time around. I went pretty simple and was so thankful that I did. These "clams" are made with vanilla wafers, store bought frosting colored purple, and edible pearls. I used a 1M tip on the frosting to create this look.

 To go along with the under the sea them, I added fishies swimming in water...aka blue Jelly Bellies.

 I wanted to put carrots out to try to be healthy :) So, I just called them coral...cuz, why not? :)

 And I skewered green grapes onto white lollipop sticks to create "kelp".

 As for the beverage. This party I used sparkling lemonade 'sea water'. This was a party full of kids and I could only image what my white house would look like had I given 15 kids blue water. :) lol. But, in my defense, during the first party that had mainly adults I used blue Hawaiian punch for this. But in truth, doesn't the lemonade resemble the murky sea water better anyway? Gross, but #true. :)

 As for the rest of the decor, I always decorate my island and place the utensils, plates and cups on it. I also put a quote on my board that says "Always be yourself, unless you can be a mermaid". 

My husband says I go overboard for decorating...but I just love the kids faces when they wake up and see all of it. It's the best! Plus, I would say I am not so bad, I've seen some crazy parties out there in blogland :) I hope a few of these ideas have helped inspired your next mermaid birthday party ..or under the sea birthday party :) 

Pin for later:

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Continue reading

Share:

The below post contains affiliate links.

For most people, when January comes, that means they get their house back from Christmas :) Well, that used to be my case, but now we have a January packed full of birthdays, and I don't get my house back until February. We have had four birthday parties in our house in the past 15 days. Crazy! My house has been full of streamers, balloons, pink, purple, and mint for the past month. I love doing birthday's like this, but I also love getting my house back once all the madness settles down. 

Today I'm going to share with you one of the birthdays...as you may notice, it was unicorn themed. I was super excited when my little girl told me she wanted a unicorn birthday. 

 Decorating for birthday's are always fun, but I love decorating the cakes the most. They are so stressful, but also the most rewarding.

 To do this cake, I used Rosanna Pansion's version and changed it up a bit to make it my own.

  First off, I did only two layers of cake (two full funfetti cake mixes, one mix for each layer). I then covered the entire thing in marshmallow fondant to give it a smooth look.

 I used this buttercream recipe to make the rosettes. I doubled the recipe and used 4 different colors. You probably can't tell, but some pinks are lighter and some purples are a little bit more blue :) 

I went around about half the cake with the rosettes to give the unicorn a 'mane'.

 I used a couple of different tips to create the flowers: Wilton 1M, 2A, 4B and 32.

The unicorn horn was the best to make since it gave this whole piece life! I used luster dust from Hobby Lobby, they didn't have gold in stock, only bronze. I wanted gold but didn't have enough time to order it online. This is the luster dust I was going to use off of Amazon. And also, me being super prepared for this, didn't think to get a clean vanilla or almond extract. I had mint. I was seriously like seconds away from using the mint extract on this horn and ears until my neighbor said I could borrow some from her :) I can't lie, I love the smell of mint, but thought that would be a little odd on a funfetti cake. lol

 So, I had this cake done like at 5 o'clock...that is, everything besides the eyes. I was terrified to ruin the cake and make the eyes a mess. It seriously sat there until 11...six hours...for me to get the nerve to do the eyes. I practiced a bazillion of times on scrap fondant plastered to round containers. I finally decided on an eye shape and figured the night wasn't getting any younger :) So, I took the plunge. If I had done this with buttercream frosting, it probably would have wiped off pretty easily if I made a mistake, but the only black I had laying around was gel. And that stuff just makes a mess. I am happy how they turned out...not quite symmetrical...but whose eyes are really symmetrical anyway, right? :)

This was one of these cakes I wish I could make a week in advance just so I could enjoy the fruit of my labor longer. It took quite some time. I'm glad I didn't make this the day of the party. I would have cried seeing it cut into hours after making it.

 Now back to the rest of the party decor. I went with a pink and purple theme.

That sign in the background says "Be a unicorn in a field of horses."

 I usually go all out with birthdays and create way too many little 'side dishes', sweets, or snacks. I went easy on myself this time around. I just made two extra things. This unicorn popcorn was a huge hit.

 It's just buttered white popcorn with candy melts on it.

 I then made unicorn 'poop' cookies...well, that flattened out. So they are more like stepped on unicorn poop. But, you get the idea :) I can do a tutorial on all of these if you want. Just let me know in the comments.

 I found these cute unicorn horn party hats at Hobby Lobby for about $3. For the table cover, I used a white table clothe and some purple tulle. I then placed paper flowers all along it.

 Here's the whole shebang. We did have some stuff in the kitchen, but didn't photograph that.

I just love how this backdrop turned out. These balloons were actually left over from the other birthday party, but worked well with this one too. The streamers are the unicorn's mane. The flowers are foam flowers from Hobby Lobby. The eyes, ears, and horn were all cut on my Silhouette.

 The back buffet was used for the party favor bags dressed up as unicorns.

 The horns, ears and eyes were also cut on the Silhouette for these. The flowers are from Hobby Lobby as well and hot glued on.

 And the favors inside? Why, unicorn poop of course! Classy...I know :) Unicorn poop in the form of multi-colored mini marshmallows.

 I hope this gave you some ideas for your next unicorn party! This was a ton of fun. Also, the best place I found unicorn supplies (luckily they are almost everywhere now) is Zurchers, Target and Hobby Lobby. We got the plates, napkins, cups and large unicorn balloon at Zurchers (not pictured, sorry), and a few random unicorn stuff at the other stores :)

Oh, and need a good drink idea?
My go to, easy drink is two frozen lemonades mixed with 4 liters of Sprite or 7-Up. You can probably use some sparkling water for this too.

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Continue reading

Share: