We all want to celebrate what our children love and what makes them special, but they often love popular cartoon characters, and the idea of a party filled with pre-packaged, commercial, plasticky decorations and favors can be unappealing. Camilla loves The Little Mermaid, and her mom wanted to honor that but in a less commercial way. We decided to take the party in a more general "mermaid" direction, with some fun nods to her favorite movie. We settled on a pinks and aquas for our color scheme, with seashells and watery details.
I used 36" balloons with tassel tails and small paper lanterns trailing ribbons to evoke jellyfish. Camilla's name was printed in pink glitter cardstock on a watery blue background, with a glittery pink "4" on a seashell announcing her birthday, and some glittery bubble accents.
Camilla's mom Kara kept the snacks simple and adorable. Clamshell cookies, starfish sandwiches, coral cupcakes, bubbly bite fruit kabobs, and crustacean crisps.
We hung some more of the jellyfish lanterns in the trees, where the breeze really made them look lovely.
For games, we had a mermaid sack race, so the kids could "test out their sea legs." I cut simple mermaid fin shapes out of craft foam sheets and hot glued them to some thrifted pillowcases in our color scheme. I loved how they turned out!
The kids looked so adorable hopping through the grass. And the birthday girl won!
We followed that up with a treasure hunt, with a couple fun nods to The Little Mermaid. We did indeed hide dinglehoppers (plastic forks) and snarfblats (bubble pipes, in this case), and we threw in some candy items for good measure. The kids collected their treasures in beach pails.
After games, the kids happily grabbed their cupcakes and snacks and settled down for a round of "Happy Birthday" and some present opening. My peacock wicker chair seemed like a perfect seashell throne for the little birthday mermaid.
All photos by Stella Dolce Photography.
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