Hey guys! Sorry I’ve been MIA for the past week or so… I’ve been so busy working at home and performing mom duties… because let’s face it: keeping tiny humans alive is a lot of work! So I took a little bit of a winter break from my blog, to destress, and recoop, but I’m back!

Last weekend we celebrated my baby girl’s Birthday. So we threw her a A Mermaid Birthday Party!

I seriously think that this birthday party should win me at least runner up for best mom of the year! Haha!

So, my little Junie has never had a party. It’s totally due to all the moves from the Marine lifestyle. So this year, I wanted to do something amazing… I mean, at 4 years old she should be able to slightly remember this party, right? I may have gone a little overboard…

Warning: This is a totally Pinterest Birthday Party!

The birthday girl, June, is currently into mermaids. So I ran with that theme for her party!

With that said, every mermaid needs a dinglehopper/fork, right?

I originally wanted to do fondant tails for the cupcakes, but I got burned out and didn’t want to DIY it (or pay crazy prices on etsy for pre-made fondant mermaid tails) so I got myself some toothpicks, cardboard cereal boxes, and washi tape to make some flat ones… oh and glitter puff paint, can’t forget that! Boom. Same effect.

I also NEEDED to have blue gummy sharks. I remember those from when I was a kid. I also used jolly ranchers for jewels, and we found some other cute sea creature candies to go with them.

This DIY turquoise drink was actually just lemonade with some wilton food coloring.

I told June, “Hey! Look at this Mermaid Water!” and she said, “No mommy. It’s Mermaid Juice.” Haha! So we called it mermaid juice.

Okay, so maybe I went overboard with the decorations… but it was a blast!

When I was photographing it all, I had to keep pushing people away so I could take photos. I mean, I have to pretend like my house isn’t lived in, right? #bloggerproblems

THIS is the recipe I used for the frosting. It’s a sour cream frosting (yummy!) on top of cake box cupcakes (I’m so fancy!) I literally used my (very clean) fingers to dollop the frosting on to make it look like waves. Totally worked. And no, I didn’t lick them in between applications… “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

And then there were these little guys. I had seen orange candy crabs on pinterest, but I decided that I already had too much sugar out, so I grabbed my toothpicks, some eye candies from walmart, and made a healthy version.

And then there were these sand dollar sugar cookies with almonds. I put them on a platter with left over cinnamon sugar to look like beach sand. I used this recipe HERE.

Aren’t they adorable? Btw- I went overboard with the swedish fish and jello thing… only one kid had one, and she made us take out the fish! Lol! #fail

And you can’t have a mermaid party without gold fish!

Also, notice our pretty betta fish. June named him “fish.” My child is so creative.

More crabs stealing the show…

I used the same pillar from my sister’s wedding to support the cake. Isn’t it something mighty wonderful to behold?

My little sis made these adorable jelly fish out of coffee filters. I think they are so cool!

I tried pulling the whole house together for the party by adding subtle details throughout. Bottles of sand in the bathrooms, this sign in the kitchen, etc.

Again with this gorgeous naked cake: I think I want to marry it.

It was delicious and seriously only took me under an hour start to finish. I’ve made wedding cakes before (they are a nightmare) and swore to never do another one… but I am totally willing to do a naked cake for my friends…. because what makes it so perfect is that it’s very nature is imperfection.

Don’t get stung by the coffee filter jelly fish!

Isn’t this Red Bell Pepper Octopus in the veggie dip adorable? My sis made him.

And she also made this mermaid tail out of pineapple. Brilliant!

Overall, I think it was a pretty cool set up. I tried to use what I had on hand, for the most part, but I did splurge a tiny bit on this party.

We played a fun game with the kids where they used a makeshift fishing rod (stick and string) to go fishing over a curtain, where someone tied goodie bags & stuffed animals to them. They LOVED it (and so did all the adults)

My husband would probably say that the best part of this party was that it forced me to take down all my Christmas decor…

… minus the lights all over my house!

It was seriously a blast & I hope she remembers it! She’s my little sunshine & it brought me so much joy to do somethign special for her.

Tomorrow I’m going to post a short birthday candle photoshoot I did with June. Heads up: she’s a little poser!

Hope you all enjoyed this little glimpse into June’s DIY Mermaid Birthday Party!