Mermaid Birthday Party

 OK friends I know that I have been MIA for quite awhile here on my blog. Honestly, the past 2 years have been the craziest two years of my life. We had our 4th baby, then moved 3 weeks later from Iowa to Texas for a one year fellowship, then just to pack everything back up and move across the country again to Idaho. I thought the transition to 4 kids would be a piece of cake--everyone told me that after 3, what's one more, right? Wow, my world got thrown upsidedown and I had my first experience with post partum depression. I have had some wonderful family and friends in my life that helped me through this time, and now I feel back to me and life is a little less chaotic. We are now settled, I finally have a house with 2 ovens! (Wow, I am still doing a happy dance about that one!), and now it's time to play catch up on my blog. Don't worry, I didn't stop baking during these couple of years. I have plenty of cakes to show you. I will do my best to get them all up on here within the next couple of months. They may be a little big out of order, but at least they will be up!

During our year in Texas we had a fun mermaid birthday party for my older 2 girls. Since their birthdays fall right before Halloween, they tend to want their party to go with the costumes they decided on for Halloween. This year it was all about the mermaid.

 This cake was one of my favorites to make. I had been wanting to try out this new technique I learned online with the ombre effect in fishscales using modeling chocolate. It worked out well, and was much easier to do than I anticipated. The buttercream ruffles for the waves on the bottom tier were done with an oversized french star tip with some white streaks of buttercream in my bag filled with blue buttercream. I found a mold to make the shells and starfish, and the seaweed was easily done by twisting some extra modeling chocolate pieces.

 I'm not the best sculpter of people, or mermaids, out of fondant and modeling chocolate, but I still like how my two little mermaids turned out. They are sitting on the ocean floor made up of crushed graham crackers (you could use brown sugar too).

 Adding a few edible pearls (found in the cake decorating section at Walmart or most craft stores) added the perfect last touch to the cake.

 We had a fun spread of some other under the sea cuisine

Some edible Oysters and pearls made with buttercream and an edible pearl sandwiched between two lemon cookies.

 Blue jello with fish in them--maybe not the best idea. I made up the jello and when it was almost set, pushed a swedish fish in it. The jello sort of made the fish start to dissolve and when the kids finally ate it, it was a strange consistency that no one liked. Maybe skip this one next time ;)

Some vanilla pudding topped with graham cracker sand to portray the beach, and white chocolate shells made up these yummy treats.

 The jellyfish hanging behind the table were my favorite! All you need for these are chinese lanterns, found in any craft store, streamers, clear tape, and a good show to watch on Netflix while you are cutting and twisting streamers every 2-3 inches. I also added some thin, shiny curly ribbon for a little more sparkle and texture.Honestly, I loved these so much I left them hanging in my home for the next month, until it was almost Thanksgiving and we were having a house full of guests come into town, and my husband said the jellyfish had to finally go back to the sea.

 Here are my two mermaids. Aren't they cute! Even with the missing teeth! These were their Halloween costumes--I usually let them wear them for their party, but we had too many running around games outside with water, that I made them change back into human clothes for the party, and done their mermaid fins later. We made these necklaces for all the kids to wear at the party--just a small shell from the dollar store, a fake pearl, and some glitter glue. These were a hit with all the kids.

 Besides the water relays we did, we also raced to see which team could make a person into a mermaid the fastest with crepe paper, and we painted little sunken treasure chests.

Finally before heading home we let the kids have at our "octopus" pinata. I know, it looks a little pathetic. This was one of those crafts you do with the kids entirely for letting the kids have the experience making paper mache. Our streamer legs needed a little more stiffness to them, but they still had fun busting him open and racing to get the underwater treasure hiding inside him.

I hope you enjoyed this one. We had a blast with this party--their only birthday party in Texas, so we could actually do water games and be outside without freezing! All their other parties in Iowa were so cold at the end of October.  Cheers until next time!