Last month my youngest daughter turned three. We had a pretty wicked birthday party for her. It was a Mermaid and Pirate themed-party. I got the idea from Pink and Green Mama who did the same thing for her daughter’s party. (Although she did a much better job, since she is one of the most creative and artistic bloggers I know.) Anyhow, a month before her birthday I received the opportunity to choose $75 worth of party supplies from Birthday Express in exchange for a review of the supplies I chose. So this is my belated review and highlights of the party post.
The Costume
The thing I was most excited about getting the opportunity to choose was a mermaid costume for my daughter who has become crazy about mermaids. Not The Little Mermiad, mind you, just mermaids in general. Therefore, I was delighted that the Costume Express site had (at last count) eleven different non-Ariel mermaid costumes! Since I was getting the birthday girl a costume I decided it would be fun to ask our guests to dress up too. Therefore, the boys came as pirates and the girls came as mermaids (or princesses, since mermaid costumes can be hard to come by). This is the one I ordered for my daughter. The regular price is $44.99. I believe it was on sale for $21.99 when I ordered it.
My daughter is a size four so I ordered a size 4-6, but I was surprised how tight it fit her. I know she is a big girl for her age, but if a mother was purchasing one of these for her daughter I would suggest getting the next largest size. A true size 5 or 6 would NOT fit into this. The skirt part of the dress has shiny blue stickers on it. A few came off when she wore it the first time and a few more have come off since then. The dress came with a mermaid necklace (seen in the photo) and a wand (not pictured). My daughter loves it!
Fishes in the Fish Tank
When our guests first arrived I had them each colour a poster board fish I had cut out. Then they taped them onto a large piece of blue poster board that I had made look like a fish tank. I used long strips of green tissue paper as seaweed and wider strips of yellow tissue paper as the sand. For the photo I got my inspiration from go here. I can’t believe I forgot to take a picture of our finished project! It was really colourful and fun. There was no game attached, instead it was a group art project. We kept it on the wall to enjoy as a reminder of the party for a few weeks afterwards.
Sea Monster, Sea Monster
After our art project we went out side and played Sea Monster, which is similar to What Time is it Mr. Wolf? One person is the sea monster. The children stand about 20-30 feet away from the sea monster and call out “Sea monster, sea monster, are you hungry?” and the sea monster says, “No. Take ___ steps forward.” The game continues until the sea monster decides he or she is hungry and says “Yes, I am!” and chases the children back to the starting point. Any child he or she catches is turned into a sea monster too. The game continues until there is only one child left who hasn’t been turned into a sea monster.
Running from the sea monster.
Treasure Hunt
After the Sea Monster game we came inside for the treasure hunt. I kept it easy and hid all the treasure together in the bathtub. We played “Hot and Cold” for the children to find it. Turned out to be a useful game since most of them had never played. And as one knows “hot and cold” is a pretty useful life skill. (wink)
The treasure consisted of stick-on jewels that are easily found at craft supply stores and gravel that I spray painted gold. The kids loved it. The treasure chest was something I found at a thrift store and decided it would be perfect as a gift for my daughter – aka, The Mermaid Queen. Inside I hid her birthday crown and some kiddie jewelry, which the other girls also received in their goodie bags later. At the time I thought I may have ended up ordering one less goody bag than I needed so this would have made up for it. In the end I was left with five extra ones! (Gotta love those cancellations!)
Pirates and Mermaids looting the treasure.
Birthday Cupcakes
Time for cake! I made my starting-to-get-famous-if-I-do-say-so-myself Vanilla Breast Milk Cupcakes with Strawberry Frosting. (Except I didn’t use breast milk in them. Not to worry dear friends!) We got to use our super cool Pink Skull and Crossbones plates and napkins that I ordered from Birthday Express. There were also larger plates (not pictured) that had a picture of a pink skull in the middle of them. I liked that the plates were strong and sturdy enough to hold our snacks. I’m not sure if they’d hold up under a large and heavy meal, but they’d definitely do better than any of the cheap paper plates at the grocery store.
Goody Bags
After cake we did presents and handed out the goody bags. The goody bags were the one item other than the costume that I was really excited about, and they did look great; however, they were very time consuming and arduous to put together and it was difficult to get all of the treasure chest lids and purse flaps to close. By the time I had assembled all 12 of them I was ready to scream. But they were a hit and they did fit a lot of goodies in them. I ordered the press-on tattoos and stickers from Birthday Express. I also ordered pink, fuschia and black skull and cross bone balloons that I forgot to take photos of. The other items I bought at the local toy store.
All in all I was quite pleased with my order from Birthday Express and I would use Costume Express again if I was looking for a specialty costume. Their inventory was fantastic and they can outfit anyone from a newborn to adult. I’m not the kind of mom who spends a lot of money on birthday-themed dishes and decor, and I certainly would not regularly spend $40 on a mermaid costume so the change in habit was kind of fun. I tend to do more semi-green birthday parties than regular parties. But I made the exception this time because I’ve never had a party for my youngest where we invited friends (and all the fun stuff I was getting was free!). It is my opinion that parties for one and two year olds are more for the parents than the children, and that inviting a lot of kids to a toddler’s birthday can be more stressful and overwhelming for a young child than not. But my three year old is a pretty social little girl and her time for a party was certainly due. Thanks again to Pink and Green Mama for inspiring this great Pirate and Mermaids birthday party idea!
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So cute Melodie!! My CarNatPar post is on pirate play – I’ll definitely check out some of your links.
.-= Dionna @ Code Name: Mama´s last blog ..April and May Link Love =-.