Matilda's birthdays are always so fun because she is a July birthday (just like me), so we can have her parties outside! As I shared with you yesterday, we used her mermaid birthday outfit as a jumping off point for the party decor, but tried to stick with pink and blue as per the birthday girl's request.
The table decorations are my absolute favorite part! I love a good tablescape.
I had this old frame sitting in my studio that I bought for 25 cents at our local thrift shop. I used a piece of burlap that I already had around from when I made some Burlap Covered Lamp Shades a year or so ago. I taped the burlap to the back of the empty frame. Then I took a star fish that my mother-in-law had brought the kids back from the beach and hand sewed it around the center to the burlap. I love how this turned out. Rustic and beachy.........and less than $1.00!
I found a lot of the party decor at the Dollar Tree store. I bought a bunch of bags of glass beads that are meant to go inside of vases for the table. My intention was that they would look like sea glass. I bought some bags in aqua blue and some in a mixture of blues and greens.
I have about a gazillion mason jars around the house, so I grabbed one of my favorite blue ones and filled it with sand and some seas shells.
I took a hurricane vase that usually has pinecones inside it and filled it will sand and put more seashells on top. I purchased the bags of seashells also from the Dollar Tree store. Who knew they had so much beachy decor?
For the 'Welcome Mermaids' sign, I took an old school house chalkboard that I purchased several months ago at our local flea market and simply wrote the words on there with a blue chalk marker. The flowers and beads around the sign are leis that I purchased again at Dollar Tree and gave them to the ladies to wear at the party.
I also purchased 10 grass hula skirts from the dollar store and put them around the bottom of the table and hung them from the top of the canopy.
I made a simple and easy pennate banner with fabric from Matilda's birthday outfit. I didn't even finish the edges on the triangles, I thought if it frayed that it would add to the rustic, beachy feel. I attached the triangles to some rickrack trim I already had. This took me about 20 minutes to make, but I love how it incorporates the fabric into the look of the party.
These were little striped favor boxes with a seashell foam sticker added to the front of them that I used to serve pirates booty for the kids. It seems like all the kids love that stuff!
You can't have an under the sea party without fishies, right? For the food labels, I designed the main label on the computer, cut them out, backed them with some scrapbook paper and added a toothpick.
We called the pink lemonade 'Mermaid Juice'. It was a big hit.
My husband gave me a hard time about these because he said they looked like jello shots. But I found these little cups and just thought they were the perfect size for kids jello at a party. I filled the blue cups with blue raspberry jello and set them on top of brown sugar (to look like sand).
Here is the fruit that we served. I just called it 'Paradise Fruit Salad' because that sounded beachy and mermaid-like to me. The shell of the pineapple was kept together to use it as kind of a boat for the fruit salad. My mom (Grandma Jane) who was visiting from Texas helped me with this one. Isn't it pretty?
I was pretty excited about this little food project. We took two vanilla wafer cookies, spread strawberry frosting on each side and put a yogurt raisin in the middle to look like an oyster with a pearl inside. I just thought these were so cute. We also drew some lines with a blue frosting gel pen on top of the cookies to look kind of like a shell. So fun!
We served spinach dip and some different chips and called it 'Seaweed Dip'.
I made some rice krispie treats and cut them out in the shape of fish. Our little guy, Caspian, could not get enough of these!
We picked up some wraps from Costco and called them 'Seaweed Sprials'. You could definitely make these yourself, but sometimes I just like to make my life a little easier and go with a few store-bought items.
The girls picked out these chocolate gold coins at the party store. They chose pink and blue and one orange one for the birthday girl. I told them to count out 30 to put in their bag. When I gave them to the cashier and told him I didn't know exactly how many they got........it turns out 30 turned into 73. Oh well.......we are rich in chocolate around here!
And the most popular party food.......the Shark gummies! The kids went nuts over these and they were a fun addition to the Mermaid Under the Sea Party.
How about some salt water taffy to go with the 'sea' theme?
Here is the pretty Little Mermaid birthday cake and here is what happened right before Miss M. blew out the candles......
Little brother had to put is three fingers in the cake.........do you see his finger marks in the picture above. That guys loves his sweets, so I guess he couldn't wait for cake. Oh brother.
Here is the birthday girl blowing out the candles on her cake!
Matilda has been asking for a bounce house for about 4 months now, so we decided to surprise her with one for her birthday. It was a present from my mom (Grandma Jane) and Pepo. You should have seen the look on the girls face when the folks delivered this and started blowing it up. They could not even contain themselves. It was a lot of fun and even I (and Daddy, Grandma and Pepo) did quite a bit of jumping the day before the party. Talk about a fun workout! And it was 'sea' themed........of course.
I made an easy appliqued shirt for Savannah to wear at the party as well. I didn't want to make her a full outfit since this was Matilda's special day, but she was really excited to have a little something mermaid to wear at the big party!
And in case you missed my other post about Matilda's Birthday Outfit........here is the big 4 year old on her birthday!
All and all it was such a great party and I had so much fun putting this together for little Matilda. Luckily my girls get just as into all of this as I do and love helping out! We gave the kids that came to the party a stuffed dolphin, a blue and silver hula hoop and a mermaid coloring / sticker book.
Here are some of the printable labels I made, if you want to download those for your own Mermaid Under the Sea party!
And here is a blank set if you want to add your own text for whatever fun party food you might have at your own child's party.
Again, Happy Birthday to my sweet little girl!
I'm so blessed to have these children and it is such a pleasure to get to spend this time making their birthdays as special as can be!

What an amazing party! There are so many great ideas. You and your family did an incredible job. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, Lisa. We had a lot of fun putting this together! Have a great day, Lindsay
DeleteSuch lovely ideas and a beautiful birthday girl in a beautiful outfit. Anne x
ReplyDeleteAwwww, thank you, Anne!
DeleteI have been waiting for this post, I love mermaids! The party looks perfect!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much, Crystal! It was such an easy party to put together since it's summertime. I couldn't believe how many things we found at the dollar store.....gotta love that!!
DeleteLove it! Love it! Love it! The colors are so lovely and so many special touches. Well done, Mama!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Laura!! I really loved doing the beachy, mermaid theme. So easy and fun! Thanks for taking the time to comment......I really appreciate it :)
DeleteWhere did you get that fabric from!?!?!? Too cute!!!
ReplyDeleteIt's from Joann's!! I was so excited when I found it. The mermaids are really sweet. It's called 'Merry Mermaids' and I found it in the quilting section. Thanks!
DeleteYou are so creative, it's inspiring. AMAZING! xx
ReplyDeleteThank you!!
DeleteSuch a cute party!!! Love all the special touches - maybe someday, you'll move to CA and I'll get to come to one of your amazing parties! Happy Birthday, Matilda!!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Stef! I know.....wouldn't that be fun? How about we plan a party together someday :). Miss you!
DeleteGREAT job! Love your attention to detail. Happy Birthday to Matilda!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Delia! This was such a fun and easy party to put together. Thank you so much for the birthday wishes too. Great to hear from you :). Talk to you soon, Lindsay
DeleteLindsey, I LOVE your party ideas! It's so pretty every time you make a party, you think of every little detail. We're going to celebrate my son's 3rd birthday in few days so I'm looking for some inspiration. Thank you very much for sharing all of your ideas.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your sweet words, Katarina......I really appreciate it!
DeleteWell done ! :)
ReplyDeleteTHANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! My daughter requested a mermaid birthday party for her 4th birthday too. I LOVE all of your ideas & I'll be using your labels as well. Thank you for sharing. Your party is absolutely adorable. I'm even more excited about her party now.
ReplyDeleteThat is so great to hear, Jennifer!! Yay! I think you'll love putting a mermaid party together......you'll be surprised how many beachy, mermaid things you can find. Have a wonderful day, Lindsay
DeleteOh my word! This has to be the most darling party I've ever seen! Thanks for so many brilliant ideas!
ReplyDeleteAwwwww, that is so sweet, Marisa. Thank you!!
DeleteWe had a bounce house gifted to us for my daughter's birthday too! It was so fun revealing the surprise!! I love that yours matched the theme. They didn't have anything for a pancakes and pearls party, but at least it was a castle.
ReplyDeleteIsn't that SO fun!?! I love those bounce houses and yes, the reveal was my favorite part. What an adorable sounding party......LOVE that theme idea. You are so creative! Have a great weekend, Lindsay
DeleteWow! What a beautiful party. Looks like it was a lot of fun. What an amazing food/treat table. Where did you get your cute drink dispenser?
ReplyDeleteThank you, Rebekah! I actually picked that up at Walmart a couple years ago. It's been really great for parties!! Thanks so much for commenting. Have a great day, Lindsay
DeleteBeautiful job on the Mermaid party. So many sweet touches.
ReplyDeletehermoso
ReplyDeleteLittle Mermaid birthday cake is so cool.I loved those oysters cookies and raspberry jello shots especially Shark gummies.
ReplyDeleteSuch a darling party.
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