Under the Sea theme – Lily’s 4th birthday party
Little Lily had a magical Sea Theme for her party! Take a look at how her mom organized and created this fantastic party! Scroll down for the amazing pictures and be inspired by her creativity!
The party was fun, Lily had a great time! It was 3 months of prep work well worth it. I didn’t have a huge budget so I bought things when I could and made almost everything myself. The hard work paid off! I’m very proud of this one.
Invitations – I made the invitations with photoshop – cartoonised a photo of Lily, then layered it onto a mermaid picture. I didn’t like the background so layered a nicer one and then put it all together.
Decorations – I got an old upright piano box from work and turned it into a yellow submarine with portholes to look out of. The coral was made out of filler foam and painted orange. I hung nets across the ceiling, made seaweed with twisted green crepe paper, the jellyfish were made out of paper lanters cut in half with ribbons handing from them. I covered the windows of our sunroom with clear blue paper to give it more of an under-the-sea feel and stuck pictures of fish everywhere.
Outfit for the birthday girl – I made the skirt to look like a mermaid tail, flaring out at the bottom but tight at the top (stretchy). I then bought a matching vest and sewed some clams to the top, beads down the tummy and plastic pearls to hang from the shoulders. I made the alice band with a pink on bought from a Chinese store and sewed a toy starfish to it with some plastic pearls. We hung a pink strand of fake hair from her hair too.
Venue – We had just bought a new house and because Lily’s birthday is in September, I wanted space both inside and outside in case the weather turned nasty. We stuffed a jumping castle into our very small garden, but the main attraction was inside, when the air shark came swimming out! I bought it online and had a party shop fill it with helium. It’s basically a remote controlled balloon shark that swims through the air. The kids went WILD over it!
Guests gifts – instead of sending home party packs, I made mermaid tails for each of the little girls (we were trying to keep numbers down due to costs and decided on a girls only party) to wear and take home with them. These were made of felt mostly with some ribbon for tying and glittery fins for the waist.[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype id="_x0000_t75" coordsize="21600,21600" o:spt="75" o:preferrelative="t" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" filled="f" stroked="f"> <v:stroke joinstyle="miter"></v:stroke> <v:formulas> <v:f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"></v:f> <v:f eqn="sum @0 1 0"></v:f> <v:f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"></v:f> <v:f eqn="prod @2 1 2"></v:f> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"></v:f> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"></v:f> <v:f eqn="sum @0 0 1"></v:f> <v:f eqn="prod @6 1 2"></v:f> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"></v:f> <v:f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"></v:f> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"></v:f> <v:f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"></v:f> </v:formulas> <v:path o:extrusionok="f" gradientshapeok="t" o:connecttype="rect"></v:path> <o:lock v:ext="edit" aspectratio="t"></o:lock> </v:shapetype><v:shape id="Picture_x0020_21" o:spid="_x0000_i1025" type="#_x0000_t75" style='width:206.25pt;height:206.25pt;visibility:visible;mso-wrap-style:square'> <v:imagedata src="file:///C:\Users\LISABU~1\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image001.jpg" o:title=""></v:imagedata> </v:shape><![endif][if !vml][endif]
Birthday Cake – My friend, Louise, made the cake for me – it’s a hobby of hers and she does take orders. I asked her for a sandcastle cake with blue velvet on the inside to make is oceany. It was brilliant! She added a clam with pearls, some chocolate starfish and it tasted delish!
The food – I made all the food sea related and had labels to match – there were sea snails (sausage rolls shaped into snails), Octodip (hummus with a red pepper shaped into an octopus), crab legs for dipping (carrot sticks), sea cucumber, fish and chips (flings and marshmallow fish), seaweed (grapes on a skewer), peanut butter starfish sandwiches, live bait (sour worms), catch of the day (gummy sharks), turtle eggs (devilled eggs) and island pudding (blue jelly with crumbed biscuits and an umbrella).