Pirate & Mermaid Party

Does it ever feel like time just speeds by a million miles an hour! Why does it have to go by so quickly?? My sister and I are now moms to two sweet, little one year old babies! Our babies are only two days apart. It was some very exciting news, when we found out we were due so close together. We new they are destined to be best friends. At least that's what they'll hear a thousand times, as they're growing up. "We had you in pairs for a reason, now go play!"

We thought it would be a blast, to have their parties together for their first birthdays! It really was a blast, too! I can't wait for y'all to see what we put together for under the sea and sailing on a boat. There really is a boat, and it was cheap and easy to do, so follow along!

Where to begin, this party was amazing! How about with the theme? We wanted to be creative, and have a lot of fun for our babies first birthdays, so the theme we chose was mermaid and pirate party. They aren't going to remember what their first birthdays were like, but everyone else will. We had too much fun decorating for it. Let's start with the Mermaid side.

Mermaid Food:

- Crab Sandwiches

- Sea Weed Grapes

- Sea Shell Pasta Salad

- Ocean Water/ Sprite & Blue Fruit Punch

Pirate Food:

- Peg Leg Corn Dogs

- Pirate Jewel Fruit Salad

- Black Beard Brew/ Root Beer

There is also our pirate and mermaid, birthday cake Lexie made for the babies. We went gaga over it!

Decorations! We tried to decorate BIG on an affordable budget- Our family loves to eat so we spent the majority of our budget on food.

We used a lot of plastic tablecloths and streamers.

We simply folded a plastic table cloth in half and then tucked one corner of the table cloth, into the shape of a ship- added some windows (by tracing around a paper plate and cutting), and cut out a crab from craft paper, then we took some cardboard and streamers to make a mast. I wanted it to look like the ship was sailing up the stairs. One thing that's nice about this, is its much easier then trying to make a ship out of cardboard, and much less time consuming. The kids were very excited to see the pirate ship!

For the tables we went all out- We placed them in front of Ana's gorgeous mirror. The food was our decoration so we made sure to make the food all themed. Don made a ship mast for the Pirate side with dowels rope, and some of our plastic tablecloths.

We printed this picture to be the center of our mermaid table. We framed it in an adorable gold frame like this one.

We loved using plastic table cloths- you can really get creative with them. On the pirate side we layered black and red. Then we randomly cut to make it look ripped like pirate clothes.

Ana has had this treasure chest for awhile- so we filled it with the prizes to go with our games. If we hadn't of had that one- we would have bought this one.

We are in love with disney- so we have had this Ariel pot for a long time. You can get a similar one here.

For the mermaid table cloths we layered three colors. Then we gathered each layer, and taped it, into place. We added the streamer pom pom's (from a banner), to each place we gathered.

You can't have a mermaid/pirate party without sea shells! We placed them all over the table. We also had these sweet mermaid plates, Or these ones are cute too!

Don't forget the balloons and streamers! If you want the same ones as we used, you can try here, or these ones. We used blues, purples and greens, when we decorated for the mermaid side.

Green streamers make great sea weed. We cut shells out of construction paper, and made squid out of lanterns and streamers. I used a pencil to curl the end of the squid tentacles. Just wrap the end of the streamers tightly around the pencil, and that should curl it.

Maps, lanterns and fun bottles work great for the pirate decor. Plus, a giant anchor and pirate hats. We really enjoyed putting this party together for our babies. We don't know how long they'll let us do this for, so we've got to enjoy it while we can! Happy birthday babies!