Under the Sea - Little Mermaid Birthday Party

So, I already showed you these adorable Octo-Pops here...but I thought I'd share a few more pictures from my big girls 6th birthday party!  She chose a Little Mermaid theme, and we're big Disney fans here so I was all over that! 

Decor was bought mostly at The Dollar Tree, Walmart, and Party City! 

I did order the lei's (the blue and purple, shown above) from Oriental Trading, when they were having a sale and free shipping a few months ago.  I also got some bubbles for the treat bags from there too.  I still have tons left over for future parties or Halloween!

Pin the tiara on Ariel, and of course we had to have The Little Mermaid on in the living room, turned down super low.

I set out some Little Mermaid books for the kids to look at, and some puzzles to play with as well.

I was so happy with how the cupcakes turned out!  They were SO easy!

I made food labels with paint sample cards, and stickers!

"Clams" were simply vanilla wafers, with strawberry frosting and a pearl sprinkle!

Fish 'n' Chips!

(that empty bowl there, was filled with dip before the party, I just didn't want it sitting out any longer than needed)

Ahhh, the cupcakes.  I actually just used boxed cake mix.  Vanilla and Devil's Food Chocolate.  Yum!

I frosted them with three different colors of frosting, to sort of mimic the ocean. 

I used the new Duncan Hines Frosting Creations, in Caramel, Mint Chocolate, and Cotton Candy.   The colors were PERFECT!  I crushed up graham crackers to put on top of the caramel frosting to be "sand."  On the green and blue frostings, I put green and blue sugar crystal sprinkles to add a little sparkle, and added some pearl sprinkles as well.  My daugher LOVED those, she couldn't believe you could eat them.  To make them extra yummy, I also used a seashell mold I had on hand and poured melted white chocolate into, to make the starfish and sea shells.  I was only going to put them on random cupcakes, but thought that might cause a problem with the kiddies, so I put them on every single one.  I made 48 cupcakes, and they were ALL gone by the next morning.  There were only 2 left and my kids ate them for breakfast, haha!

When we went to Party City to check out their mermaid selection, my daughters wanted to go see the Halloween area.  My husband took them over and they came running back to me with that trident.  They were SO excited that it looked like King Triton's, except that it was black and red.  No problem a little spray paint couldn't fix!  I already had some Rustoleum hammered finish in gold that worked perfectly!

Happy birthday, big girl!

For activities during the party, we had a water table set up outside.  We purchased a few bags of fish/sea creatures from the Dollar Tree, and some 2-packs of mermaid dolls from there as well.

We also filled a small, clam shell shaped pool with play sand.  I put some treasures in the sand and supplied shovels and sifters so the kids could dig for buried treasure.  Pirate coins, jewels, etc. 

Inside, we had some green pipe cleaner "sea weed" and beads to make bracelets!