DIY Joint Mermaid Party

Our girls' birthdays are only two weeks apart and they're young enough to be excited about having a joint party (although not sure we'll get away with it again!) so after much deliberation between a Moana or mermaid theme, this year we hosted a mermaid party at home.

The beautiful bunting, 'Thanks for swimming by' tags for our beach buckets and signs were from the super-talented Sprinkled Designs who have a shop on Etsy. You can purchase the files then print yourself so you don't have to worry about worldwide shipping and the bunting comes with the full alphabet and numbers which is wonderful for making it personalised.

Our sweet table consisted of an aqua tablecloth, with some fishing net, crystals and pearls over the top. We also put plastic baubles on there to look like under-the-sea bubbles and framed the gorgeous printable from Sprinkled Designs. Cute right?!

The cake, created locally, was the perfect centrepiece and when we cut the cake our mermaids went home with slices wrapped in cute mermaid napkins.

The purple striped paper bags matched our theme superbly and were the perfect size for our little guests to fill with pink shrimps, white chocolate and sprinkles stars, candy necklaces, sugar pearls, sand (brown sugar!) and edible glitter dipped marshmallows.

​​We hung crystals from driftwood in a whitewashed wood vase and added some faux coral to give the table some height, texture and added interest.

We hired Sapphire the mermaid through Felicity Fairy Parties (or to the girls, through the Fairy Queen!) who cover a lot of the UK. She played age appropriate games, told stories and made crowns and necklaces with our little guests. She was incredible, stayed in character throughout and really entertained everyone for the full two hours which took the pressure off Mummy and Daddy too so it was a winner all round!

Hula skirts were our party favours. I ordered adult ones because they were cheaper and more readily available and thinking I was clever tried to take the waists in with safety pins. Fail!! Me and my wonderful mum then had to hand sew them all, but it was totally worth it when their gorgeous faces lit up as they were handed one on arrival.

Rather than laying loads of buffet food out, we made wraps that morning then wrapped them in foil and added them, along with a bag of crisps and a bottle of water, to purple beach buckets for each guest, which doubled up as favours.

The buckets were personalised with gold glitter stickers and a 'thanks for swimming on by' tag from Sprinkled Designs tied on with strands of tulle. Not only was it less mess and less hassle, but it meant the girls had something to take their crafts, sweet bags and cake home in. Winner!

We created an aqua backdrop in our white marquee using an old second hand roller blind and I softened it with a white mosquito net. We covered the table with a lilac tablecloth and attached our DIY tulle skirt to it.

The long table on the floor was actually four wooden pallets pushed together and covered with wipeable aqua tablecloths. We ran a white army cloth down the middle then scattered candy necklaces, flowers from the hula skirts, signs from Sprinkled Designs and starfish. The two fishbowls were filled with aqua and lilac pebbles and a starfish, then we sprayed cardboard initials in gold glitter to personalise them for our daughters.

Hanging from the ceiling poles was our own shoal of jellyfish, which my daughter really enjoyed helping with. We made them by ordering paper lanterns then tying multi-length strands of different coloured tulle from the metal piece at the bottom along with some crystal strands. They looked so pretty when the breeze and light caught them!

So there you have it, our DIY mermaid party! It's safe to say our little guests had a blast!

• What People Ate

  Picnic in beach buckets Edible necklaces from a treasure chest Sea themed sweets from the sweet table

• Desserts

  Ombre sea themed cake Sweet Table

• Party Favors

  Hula skirts Beach Buckets Sweet table bags

• Activities / Games

  Sapphire the Mermaid played games, sang songs and made crafts with our guests

• Sprinkled Designs

  Printables

  https://www.etsy.com/shop/SprinkledDesign

• Felicity Fairy Parties - Sapphire the Mermaid

  Entertainment

  http://www.felicityfairyparties.co.uk