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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 :)
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