Ella's Rainbow-Unicorn, I mean Ocean, I mean Sea Horse Party

This year, Ella wanted a rainbows and unicorn party for her birthday.  She talked about it for months.  I tirelessly scanned Pinterest for ideas, and pinned many of them.  (You should check out my party ideas board--lots of unicorns and rainbows).  I had all of my ideas ready, and was preparing to make the invitations, when Ella informed me that she no longer wanted a unicorn/rainbow party.  She wanted a seahorse party--not an ocean party, a seahorse party.  (She's nothing if not specific).

So, I switched gears...revisited Pinterest and threw together a ocean seahorse party.  Here are some pictures:

The invite:  for the invitation, I bought plain white cards, glued a little white sand to the bottom and a cut out sea horse that I made using my mom's silhouette cutter.  I also glued on a couple of seashells.  I wrote the info by hand.  I would have loved to have had it printed nicely, but we decided on this sea horse theme only 2 weeks before her birthday---so I was working on a time crunch.

The cake.  This cake was actually pretty easy.

I made 2 9" chocolate cakes for the bottom, and 2 7" white cakes for the top.  (I didn't have a 7" cake pan, so I made 9" and used a small plate to cut around).  I made a buttercream frosting and dyed it light blue and spread this over the whole cake.  Then I used the slanted frosting tip to put the waves all around the cake.  I kept adding more food coloring to make a darker blue as I got lower on the cake.  I sprinkled brown sugar on top for sand and topped it with candy shells.  I made the shells using a candy mold that I bought at Michael's.

I wish I was better at taking food pictures.  :(

I have discovered that kids really love to eat food on a stick.  So this blow fish made out of a cantaloupe and fruit kabobs was a must.  One of Ella's friends called it a "fish"kabob.  :)

So, maybe he's a little scary.  :)

For decorations, I used a blue table cloth.  Scattered starfish that I found at Hobby Lobby on the table and made tissue paper pom-poms to hang above the table.  I loved making the pom-poms.  They were so easy and fun.  

I also served gold fish and peanut butter and "jellyfish" sandwiches.

I searched the whole town for jelly fish cookie cutters to cut the sandwiches...but with our short notice, triangle shaped sandwiches had to do.

Because I'm cheap, and did not feel like spending a fortune on little pieces of junk and candy to send home in goody bags, we made oceans in a bottle instead.  A craft, and a party favor to take home.  2 birds, 1 stone.  

I didn't get many pictures of this, because I was trying to supervise kids with sand AND water, funnels and tiny bottles around my kitchen table.  Basically, I found little plastic bottles in the sand art section of Hobby Lobby.  I also found sand there (imagine that).  I bought the bottles, white sand and tiny sea shells.  The kids used funnels to pour in the sand.  Picked out the sea shells they wanted, and topped it off with a little salt water that I tinted blue.  It was fun and cute.  

Ella and friends with their finished oceans.  They shook them up, which is why they look cloudy.

Pouring in the ocean water

And, that's all I did. Simple, right?  I could have gone crazy, planning more stuff...spending more money.  But, at the end of the day, Ella just wanted to play with her friends and open presents.  She loved it and had a great time, and I got to visit with our friends and family instead of running around leading birthday games.

It looks like Anna will be having a rainbows/unicorns party this year.  :)