Under the Sea Birthday Party

Our under the sea themed birthday party was a huge success! And I am so in love with the under the sea decorations that our apartment is going to look like a fish bowl for the foreseeable future. I should probably start renting it out as an event space, think our snotty neighbors would be mad?

If you have an under the sea party coming up I hope the following photos and quick tutorials can help you steal some of these great ideas! 

Decorations

• I searched google images for under the sea cartoon creatures and then using photoshop colored and sized them to my needs.The most tedious part was cutting each fish out and affixing it to the wall.
• I made the Happy birthday sign using photoshop as well. I found a photo of water that I liked that had lots of bubbles and was high resolution and then I recolored it and imported into letter outlines I had created. I cut these out for a long time too!
• The fishes that are hanging from the ceiling are hand-me-downs from my sister's bat mitzvah... she is now 25! 
• Streamers galore! I used green colored streamers for the seaweed and 3 different color blues for the water hanging from the ceiling.   
• DO twist the green streamers while making the seaweed
• DON'T even try to make the blue streamers even, water isn't even and it is not worth your time!
• DO have someone handing you pieces of pre-cut tape, it will move things along!

I started putting up decorations a week before the party but saved the ceiling for last. When T woke up on Sunday morning I took to see the completed living room. She looked up and then at me with wide eyes and said - WOOOOWWWW!! Totally worth the neck cramps!

Food

I am only going to tell you about the dessert table, because my lunch food was not themed...

Oysters with pearls

• Buy your favorite stuffed white sandwich cookie. Ours are some no-name store brand and I chose them because I liked the shape
• Split the cookie in half and remove the cream and set it aside
• Make/buy frosting. I bought strawberry because it was the perfect pink, it ended up tasting like fluoride from the dentist office, but people ate them up anyway
• Pipe frosting onto one half of the cookie
• Shape the cookie cream into a tiny ball and place on top of the pink frosting
• Add the top half of cookie and you have an oyster!

 Sea creature cupcakes

• Make a vanilla cake mix and fill blue cupcake liners 1/3 the way full. 
• Add some blue food coloring to the remaining batter and swirl 1 tbsp of blue cake mix into each cupcake so when you bite in, you get a blue surprise
• Buy or make vanilla/white frosting and tint it a light blue 
• Fill a zip lock bag with the frosting and cut one of the corners off. This make a very easy piping bag that you don't need to clean!
• Frost the cupcakes
• Add crushed graham cracker crumbs to make the sand
• Buy chocolate melts and an aqua themed mold and make some fun shapes to add to the cupcakes

 Whale Birthday Cake 

• Bake your kid's favorite flavor cake - for T that means chocolate! Use 2 - 9" round pans and then layer the cakes filling the gap with blue frosting!
• Make sure that some of the blue frosting goops out of the middle
• Tint white frosting to make it a light blue
• Frost the outside of the cake with the light blue frosting, you will notice the darker blue that came out of the sides of the cake mixing to create the water look. Add extra darker blue frosting in little dots and incorporate to give the look of water
• Use a stencil or free hand the whale 

Water Melon Shark

My dad made this and it came out awesome! 

• Watch this youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTh64oFeyos for more info on how to make a shark

Arts and Crafts: Octopi and Jellyfish 

Toilet Paper Roll Octopus and Paper Bag Jelly Fish

• Set out protective floor coverings 
• Let the kids paint toilet paper rolls and paper bags - use washable paint! 
• Add googly eyes
• After the paint dries cut eight legs into the toilet paper roll and bunch of tentacles for the jellyfish

Our new Octopi friends

A Jellyfish Selfie

Having fun making a mess!

Thank you Aunt Davita! This prep takes a team and I could not do this without you.  

Thank you Nana and Auntie Jordana for starting T's obsession with Baby Beluga in the Deep Blue Sea which lead to her fascination with aquatic creatures and ultimately this perfect party.