Its been birthday time in our household for Little Miss. We are spreading out the celebrations, so we enjoyed a mermaid party on Friday with Little Miss’ girlfriends (at this age, boys are not allowed by decree of the girls), the horse riding treat was today and we’re all looking forward to a Sunday Roast dinner in a local pub tomorrow. Birthdays should always be celebrated well.

We were so lucky with the weather for the party, a rare bright, sunny afternoon in what has been a pretty dreary week. The theme was mermaids, so the garden was decorated accordingly, the wall was adorned with bunting (well it can’t be a party without bunting!) and strings of shells. I had set up a small craft table with an Under the Sea table cloth and hung more themed garlands and balloons around the garden with a lovely array of shells on the outdoor window sills for decoration and to be used in the activities. Needless to say I had a party mix tape with a few themed songs, Beyond the Sea, Under the Sea etc.. to complement the girls’ pop choices, One Direction remain as popular as ever! In planning the party it was difficult to decide what the best activities would be, were they too old for pass the parcel, musical statues, would they like to make something or should I just allow them to dance and chat? I decided on some craft activities and to see how the party developed. I had bought some scratch art mermaids and peg dolls which went down well with the girls and were great party bag fillers too. The activity they all loved was making mermaid hair clips, I bought simple clips and they chose shells from the decorations around the garden which I attached with a hot glue gun, they looked very impressive and it was so simple to do. Among the craft activities there were lots of gymnastics, dancing and the odd game of Musical Statues at their request!

The food was simple, fresh party food but presented within the theme. I carefully used cookie cutters to shape the sandwiches into starfish, popcorn was coral, cocktail sticks of grapes seaweed, whilst the strawberry and lemon jellies represented the sunshine! The cake was more challenging than I had expected, the green laces I had hoped to use as seaweed didn’t work, but green shaped icing was a good alternative. I also used some silver glitter and blue sparkles as waves, the sparkles worked well but I didn’t like the glitter effect. All little things to learn from, I love creating the children’s cakes and among all the fancy food it proved a lovely centre piece. Sadly I didn’t get a taste as it was sliced up for the party bags and was then shared with siblings who came to pick up guests and Little Miss delivered some to our lovely neighbours whose Friday evening peace had been broken by our music, chat and laughter. As well as the cake, a sweetie and some stationery I was really pleased with a mermaid favour which I had found on Ebay, it was a personalised bracelet kit with mermaid charm and letters which spelt out the guests’ name, they were well priced and looked gorgeous in a little organza bag.

All the organisation, planning and work was worth all the effort, I liked the theme and hope I was able to entertain the girls. I’m already on Pinterest looking for inspiration for next year!