Splish Splash Mermaid Bash

Are you ready to set sail on the Enchanted Seas? Cause I’m so ready to share with you all the pretty from my daughter’s “Splish Splash Mermaid Bash” 5th birthday. It was truly magical for all the little mermaids & pirates that washed ashore so hop on as we set sail!Every party these days has to have a designated photo area, it’s just the photo sharing world we live in. This one was no different so I set up a Shellfie Station. I hung some tulle with a few iridescent streamer curtains for the backdrop and laid out a few bags of play sand to give us our own little piece of the beach right on our back patio. This cute little over sized shell can be found here. It got two coats of pretty aqua shimmer and added some glitter vinyl using my Cricut.  I was super excited to be able to reuse my Totally Tiki Bar from my Moms in Paradise shoot back in May.  Serving up some Magical Mermaid Potion! Sea Water labels can be found in my Etsy shop.  This project right here was quite the undertaking. So I have this very unsightly concrete wall in my backyard. Any way you look at it, its just ugly. I knew I had to figure out a way to cover it because I didn’t want it in all the photos. My solution was to cover it with iridescent tablecloths and then to add some coral & sea creatures. I recently purchased new dining room chairs from Pier 1 and in the packaging were tons of large square Styrofoam pieces. I knew I could put them to use for something so I held onto them and they sure came in handy. I had my girlfriend free hand some coral designs for me. I then used a hot knife from Michael’s to cut them out. The hot knife basically just melted the Styrofoam and made it much easier to cut. Once the first two corals were cut out I used those to trace many many more pieces and then had to cut all of those out. Then came the painting, drying, painting some more and glittering. All in all it took about 2 days but my girls and I had lots of fun together painting and I love how it all came together plus no concrete wonderwall!  Onto the kids table, one of my favorite things to style for parties! I designed the table, my husband built it for me. It’s 8 feet long by 4 feet wide andI designed it so that the legs unscrew easily so I can swap them out if needed. I had him cut me legs in 3 different sizes so it can be used as a low table like this, a medium height table for when I want to use normal kids chairs or an adult size table for dinner parties. Genius!! Instead of chairs I used these fun glitter ottomans!  These cute seahorse plates & gold silverware came from Shindigz. Amazing Oyster shell place cards came from Rachel Carl Calligraphy. I upped my water bottle game by not using the plastic bottles I normally use and decorating them with labels. Instead I opted for glass bottle with cork tops that I made little shell necklaces for. Mermaid Tail straw toppers can be found in my Etsy shop as well. These seashell coasters are a new addition as well and can be found here.  The boys needed some love too. I’m excited to take on a full pirate theme party one of these days!  Another great place card from Rachel Carl.  Our Splish Splash station was full of fun little treasures for all the mermaids to take home. My two girls got mermaid crowns but I made hair clips for everyone else, glitter necklaces, seashell fans, iridescent rings and custom makeup bags for them to take it all home in. I found the makeup bags on clearance at Forever 21 for only $3 each and added a personalized vinyl decal made with my Cricut.  These adorable paper seashell fans can be found here.  Cute little banner can be found here.  The crown I made for Olivia.  Okay, so let’s get real and talk about this Chandelier. Sometimes I am able to find one decor piece that I just love so much that I can plan a whole shoot around it. This Octopus chandelier would be one of those pieces. So fun & whimsical and just down right makes you happy to look at it. Genius design by Chandelier by NK.
Now let’s talk balloons…. Isn’t the matte color just gorgeous? In order to get the matte color you have to double stuff the balloons. So you take a pink balloon and stuff it inside a white balloon and it gives you the matte look. Who has time for that? Surely not me…so I used my girls at CD Balloons & Crafts for the balloon install.  Full dessert table set up = perfection.  Cookies & cake pops by Sweets by Gigi.  This was my first time ordering macarons online. I was nervous ordering such delicate treats to be shipped but was assured they would arrive in time and in good condition because that is what the company specialized in. That however was not the case. All 6 of these were unusable when they arrived. I had to take them apart completely and clean them up to make them presentable. 3 of them I couldn’t salvage and had to throw away. I was so bummed because these were the one thing I was looking forward too so much and believe me they weren’t cheap! I emailed the company after they arrived with photos of their condition and all I got was a standard we apologize for the inconvenience however we are unable to do anything about it….etc. So I’m not going to give credit to this company because when your customer service sucks you don’t get recognized by me…so take that! I’m sure that did nothing but atleast I feel better about it. 🙂  Cake from the very talented Baked By Bri. I’m excited for some new ventures coming soon where I have teamed up with Brianna as my lead baker to bring some amazing treats your way!

Topper & cake stand from Shop Sweet Lulu. 
Cupcake toppers can be found here.  This cute little clam holding my Sea Pearls came from Typo. It’s actually a novelty light that is on my daughters nightstand which you will be seeing very soon in the brand new mermaid Cove bedroom reveal. It looks like that particular color is sold out but they have two other cute options if you want to pick one up.  Dress up outfits for all the little girls so we could all be mermaids! The tank tops are from Target and each one is embellished differently with jewels I found at Michael’s. Sewing is not something I am any good at so I handed that project off to my girlfriend and her mom. Thank you ladies!! I wanted each girl to have a mermaid tail but I didn’t want a full skirt that would hinder them from running & playing in it. So I came up with a knee length design in the front with a cascading mermaid tail in the back. So perfect and now I want one for myself! This makeup vanity got quite the makeover. I will be sharing that soon on my Instagram page as one of my Transformation Tuesdays so stay tuned to see the before.
The crown I made for Leilani.  These adorable mermaid glitter jars came from These Tiny Treasures.  I had a grand plan to make real seashell invites but I just ran out of time, it’s a curse on my creativity being too busy sometimes. Instead I found this design I loved on Etsy so I had her make some color changes for me and then I put them inside clear glitter frames found at Home Goods. We wrapped them up in a pretty pink ribbon and my little mermaid hand delivered them herself.
The boys didn’t walk away empty handed believe me! There was a whole Treasure Trove set up just for them. Full of jewels, treasure maps, pirate pouches sewn by my mom (thanks mom!), telescopes, eye patches, beaded necklaces, gold bars & its very own pirate raft with captains wheel.  For the pirate invitations I made a treasure map invite printed out on brown kraft paper, rolled it up and slipped it inside a mini bottle with sand. Their very own message in a bottle.  The pirates also got their own shirts made from plain white shirts from Target. The sleeves were cut to make them a little more raggedy and brown shoelaces were used to string up the v necks cut into them. So simple and such a cute touch.  Found these treasure box activities at Target around Easter time. They were made just for me with under the sea ones and pirate themed ones. One of the benefits of starting your planning early is finding great finds like this.  They still needed to be stained and embellished but turned out to be a fun activity to keep all the kiddos entertained for a while.  Inside I served up all the food but I was rushed for time and didn’t take many pics of that so here’s a large number 5 and some pretty napkins for ya! That was a lot of details to get through but now it’s finally party time!  Don’t forget to call me on my shellphone!  My Sea Captain!  I found the cutest press on nails at Justice and the girls thought they were the best thing ever.  My skirt was from Windsor.  I made water bottles for the pirates too but forgot to photo those. I covered the glass bottles with fish netting and wrapped twine around the top. So cute!! Now who wants to hire me for a pirate party?We wrapped the party by handing out the goodie bags & setting sail on the pirates ship. Wasn’t that fintastic? Thanks for setting sail with me & one last shout out to all the peeps that helped pull it together! I’m gearing up for the busiest couple of months for me with photography as we head into the holiday season but we will be celebrating Leilani’s birthday mid November with her “Lucky Number 7” bash. Keep your eye on my insta stories to catch glimpses of that as I start the prep for it!