A Very Pinterest 1st Birthday

Well the reviews are in and I think Parker's first high society soiree was a hit. Should be the talk of all the babies in town. When I wasn't freaking out about entertaining, I was putting together an Under the Sea theme with some help from my pals over at Pinterest. 

Now, I'm not the craftiest person in the world...but it's amazing what you can accomplish when you forego Girls Night Out for a few weeks and instead  take an obsessive interest in preschool mermaid crafts. Take a look, I've attached links to a few of the items I was most inspired by. I hope something tickles your fancy. 

The birthday girl!

Somehow in all of my planning details I forgot to find an outfit for the guest of honor. I took for granted I'd be able to find a tiny mermaid ensemble but didn't have much luck. I did, however, have just enough time to grab this adorable crown from Kichiqueen on Etsy. I paired it with the first gold flecked skirt I found at Babies R Us and made a 'ONE' top using some gold fabric paint and a plain onesie.

Sweets for my sweetie pie - pay no attention to the family portrait from 1985 in the background...
I was still perfecting my "look."

Octopus delicacies: I couldn't pinpoint an initial source for these but there were tons of pics floating around, so I used those for inspiration and for the others, we had Swedish Fish leftover that I needed to do something with so...voila.

These cupcakes were interesting and one of the most talked about edibles at the event. Those with white frosting are vegan. Both girls - the 5 year old and 1 year old - have allergies and/or food sensitivities so I had to have an alternative available for them. I used a recipe from Kitchen Grrls and it seemed to go over pretty well. Those with blue icing and topped with Swedish Fish are red velvet gems from a family friend. Those also didn't last long at all!

I can't decide if the candy eyes on my starfish men ended up looking like boobs or not...but the kids didn't mind. 

Again, there was no original source for these under the sea treats but there are tons of similar pics floating around Pinterest. I specifically used the standard Rice Krispie Treats recipe and then a star shaped cookie cutter after they'd cooled. The candy eyes I found at Walmart and I used a dab of icing (from the cupcakes) to secure them in place. 

Is it a bird, a plane, a superhero? Nope, just an incredibly bruised (by day's end) banana dolphin.

My poor little banana dolphin had a tough day. When the kids realized what he was, they tried to take him out and "feed" him some of the other treats on the table. I had to save his life several times, so I'm not entirely sure he wasn't plotting my demise by the end of the day. I settled on him the day before the party though, when I realized I might not have time to make the watermelon shark I had my eyes on.

Our living room decor is beach inspired, so both sandy vases we'd already had lying around. But I added shells from Michaels and gussied them up a bit when I saw the super cute version Hostess with the Mostess posted on her blog.

 

The seaweed and glitter fish were made with crepe paper and sparkly card stock. I got the seaweed idea after looking at Growing Kids Ministry. And since I thought the balloon fish would be too tempting for little hands not to pop, and I also wanted to add some pizzazz I used some fancy card stock we had lying around that I'd previously purchased from Michael's. 

This DIY high chair decor was inspired by The Chickabug Blog. My lighting here is horrible, but the letters are made from the same sparkle paper as the fish on the walls.

We'd been taking pics of Parker monthly to add to a birthday picture frame of hers. But I saw a way to use all the pics (and some starfish) to complete her party theme over at Chicabug's blog.

To make the entrance to each room a bit more festive, I added super simple tissue paper poms in our theme colors and some crepe paper from the doorway. I then hung fish shapes from twine. It was a last minute addition, but I think it looked really nice as the guests stepped inside.

And I could never decide if I liked the crepe streamers draped or hanging, so in the more narrow doorways, I did this low hanging vertical version (with the same twine fish) with alternating colors. When people walked past it rippled like waves. Pretty cool. 

I fell in love with these paper lantern octopi (octopuses?) I saw on the Paperblog. I took some creative liberty with them and added eyes and streamers instead of the ribbon they used though.

My big guys wanted to assist with the decor so we found a painless craft on Daisy Cottage Designs and modified it to use the construction paper and Cheerios we had available at home. 

She was 1 happy mermaid!

Everyone had a really good time and most importantly my littlest baby got to be princess for a day, so it's definitely one for the books!