My Daughter's 4th Mermaid Birthday

by Jillian Leslie on

Finally, finally. Now that my daughter and I have both recovered from being sick and I’ve returned from Bloggy Boot Camp, I’m finally able to post photos of my daughter’s 4th mermaid birthday.

Here is my daughter with her fairy princess hat. She debated wearing a mermaid costume, but ultimately fell in love with this dress. The face paint was of her own design. Every Friday, the children at my daughter’s preschool are able to paint their own faces, hence the face painting you’ll see on the other little guests.

The beautiful printables are from Lindi of Love the Day. The birthday banner was a great decoration for the fence. I printed out Lindi’s cupcake topper designs, strung them together, and used them as a border along the pizza table. Plus I decorated a coral centerpiece with hanging tags.

The awesome photo booth props are courtesy of Kelli from The Paper Dolls Shoppe and my homemade “photo booth” sign I printed out and put in a frame.

Here’s the bucket of photo booth props. I decided to step out of our mermaid theme a bit and put together a collection  of fun hats, masks, tiaras, leis, sunglasses, boas, and colored hair. The kids had a blast with them and wore them throughout the party.

These are the insanely lovely fondant cupcake toppers from Charynn at Two Sugar Babies and were a nice surprise for the guests. And here’s a pictures of the special mermaid cupcake topper (with a bite taken out of it) that Charynn made especially for my daughter’s cupcake.

Here is what the table looked like before the pizzas arrived.

The bucket of favors: they were mermaid and pirate Shrinky Dinks with cute printable “thank you” favor tags from Lindi. I got a lot of good feedback from the parents on the favors. Nice take-home activity.

Here are the unbelievable balloon bouquets from Balloon Celebrations. Since the party was at a park and there was a lot of open space, we needed something “big” to make an impact and the balloons did just that!

The entertainment — Goofy Gil and his friend Momo — kept everyone laughing.

Some of the photo booth pics…

And finally… my delicious girl and me!!

So here are my lessons learned:

  • Serving just pizza and cupcakes worked better than expected. No one seemed to miss the healthy fruit or the decadent dessert table.
  • My photographer, Samantha Zachrich, was well worth it, and I loved working with her. Next time I will put together a shot list because of course after it was over, I realized I missed certain shots, like a group photo of all the guests, the pizza table, the cupcakes in their trays, etc.
  • Having someone there to help man the photo booth with the photographer was essential because 4-year-olds definitely need some wrangling. Also, I wish I’d gotten a bigger piece of fabric to hang up as the backdrop.
  • Keeping the party short to one and half hours was ideal. For most of the kids and parents it was just enough time, and for others we left them wanting more. Love that!
  • I still need to work on “flowing with it.” This is definitely my hardest lesson. When the pizzas were almost late I got stressed. When the kids raided the photo booth props to wear during the party, I had to remind myself to breathe. And when my daughter became obsessed with the presents during the party (having never gotten so many from her friends before) I had to remember to laugh about it.

After it was all over, my daughter hugged me and said this was “the best party ever!” That is what made the whole day (and months of planning) worth it!!

Comment

16 comments

  • no photo

    adriana wrote:

    Nice party! The printables are nice and the birthday girls dress is just lovely!!

  • no photo

    laura~eye candy event details wrote:

    so FUN - the bottom line -(like you said) is they had a BLAST! That is worth all the hours of stressing that we do as moms! Great job - and your daughter is ADORABLE! =)

  • no photo

    Tara Odebrecht wrote:

    Fabulous!! Gearing up for a party at our house. It's so much fun to make these fabulous memories for those little ones we love! Awesome party!!

  • no photo

    Claudia @ Tini Posh wrote:

    Love it! Your daughter is adorable..kids look like they had a blast! Great job mama!

  • no photo

    Michelle wrote:

    Cute party! :) I'm lovin' all the wild face painting onthe kiddos - what a fun school to let them paint their own faces! :)

  • no photo

    Laura wrote:

    You did such a great job! I LOVE outdoor parties. Everything looked fabulous and the kids all looked so happy! My fave is the picture of you and your daughter, GORGEOUS!

  • no photo

    Candace wrote:

    So sweet!

  • no photo

    Kristin wrote:

    The party turned out lovely! Very sweet. It is always a good thing to learn "something" or "somethings" from the parties we host. Often times we are our worst citics, because of the passion we have to make it a magical, special time for all. And after it is all said and done, I think you did that.

  • no photo

    rebekah {A Blissful Nest} wrote:

    Just love that last picture of the 2 of you!! Love every detail Miss Jillian!!

  • no photo

    Gwynn {GwynnWassonDesigns} wrote:

    WOW!! So cute! It looks like everyone had a lot of fun!!

  • no photo

    Melissa at Buckets of Grace wrote:

    What a beautiful, thoughtful party. My favorite part is that was not "staged." You can definitely tell you took your daughter's interests to heart when planning. What a perfect party!

  • no photo

    Nina Designs wrote:

    She looks so adorable! gorgeous party! And LOVE the last photos!!

  • no photo

    Sweet Craft Cakes wrote:

    What a beautiful party! And LOVE the one with you and your lovely sweetie!!! Smiles~ Noelle

  • no photo

    Fara wrote:

    Great party! I am glad everything turned to be wonderful and being I mommy myself the most rewarding thing is when your kid tell you how fun everything turned to be and that she had the time of her life! Great job! Fara

  • no photo

    Diamelis wrote:

    I love how everything you did! it looks like the kids and especially your daughter, had a fantastic time! i just had a party for my two girls this past weekend and can totally relate to the missed photo shots that we wish we could recreate. i dont think i got one family shot of the four of us throughout the entire party! it's good to know there's always next year :)

  • no photo

    Michelle wrote:

    Great party. My daughter 4 year old daughter is into PINK dresses also. That one is beautiful. I like your idea of keeping it simple. Last year I spent almost $1000.00 on my daughters birthday party, this year we only spent $380.00. This years party was better. We had it at a roller rink and had pizza and cake. It was perfect.