Surfin' Pool Party With Mermaids!

Well here it is, FINALLY! 

THE SURFIN' POOL PARTY WITH MERMAIDS! 

The party was a couple of weeks ago and it was a HUGE success. My Princess is still talking about her birthday party! 

I wrote in a previous post that my Princess had finally settled on a birthday party theme. Being that I am not the fan of a "Character Party" theme, I decided to base the "revised" theme on her original requests. So, I set out to incorporate SURFING and MERMAIDS into one party theme.

We started with DVD video invitations and passed them out to our friends.

I settled on a color theme in shades of blue, teal and lime in an effort to imitate pool and water colors. I found a great blue fabric at Wal-Mart and incredibly, I found matching towels at a local discount store. I also scored some never been washed, linen-like, floral king size pillowcases at a local thrift store. I used my seam ripper to remove the seams and folds. The pillowcases ultimately served as beautiful, perfectly matched accents for the table top.
Along with a few trips to Michaels and the Dollar Tree, I managed to pull together something that resembled a style with purpose. I also had several left-over items stashed in my closets from my beach themed wedding to The Conductor from last year. These items, like the teal tin buckets were useful as the centerpieces. I used a bucket for each letter of the Birthday Princess's name. We painted styrofoam letters, and pushed hemp twine covered dowels through the bottom of each letter.

  
 I set out to design and craft a simple Mermaid Tail Towel party favor. This was to serve the "Mermaid" portion of the party theme:) No two Mermaid Tail Towel party favors are alike as I was constantly tweaking and perfecting one after another. Maybe it is here that I should mention I sewed 17...YESSSS 17 Mermaid Tail Towel party favors! WHEW!

The FABULOUS thing about these Mermaid Tail Towels is that they were also used as the chair decor!

Place cards were made using real flip flops, ribbon, shells and twine.

We ordered a Surfer Tiki Hut Cake from a local grocery store. It arrived less than perfect but we laughed it off and created a "hurricane story" to compliment the lopsided cake;)

 There was a selection of color themed sweet treats arranged around the cake.

Below is a picture of the food and beverage station midway through set-up.

Birthday Princess greeting her guests as they arrive and receive sno-cones.

PRETTY PARTY GIRL

GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN!

A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY PRINCESS!

Happy Father's Day Grandpa!

Created at the Embassy Suites in St. Louis/St. Charles on day 3 of our move! 

Mrs. Branch's Kindergarten class of 2022

Here is my gift to Mrs. Branch and the class of 2022

 
 

Click here for the video online and for all sharing options.
Be sure to click HQ to view in HiRes

Thank you so much to Mrs. Branch, teachers, administration, parents and 

FRIENDS 

for a 

FANTASTIC FIRST YEAR!

Another Sneak Peek ~ Surfin' Pool Party with Mermaids Invitation

High Resolution DVD Invite. 

Another Sneak Peek ~ Mermaid Tail Towel Party Favor

MERMAID TAIL TOWEL PARTY FAVOR

Another Sneak Peek at the 'Surfin' Pool Party with Mermaids'

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY ~ Sneak Peek * SURFIN' POOL PARTY WITH MERMAIDS!

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY ~ 2010 Isle of Wight/Surry County, Virginia RELAY FOR LIFE

Autograph Birthday Tshirt

This simple idea can be created for less than $10 (less than $6 for us!). We purchased a fitted tee at Target for under $5. After searching Michaels for a birthday themed iron on, The Birthday Princess decided she'd rather have a 'PRINCESS' decal for her shirt. I chose not to argue since 6 year olds definitely know what they like AND I liked the .49cent clearance sticker!

Send your Birthday Child to school with a Sharpie or fabric pen and DON'T FORGET to send a note to the teacher informing her/him that your Birthday Child IS allowed to have friends sign it!!!

 When the Birthday Princess stepped off the bus I asked her to show me her Autograph Birthday Tshirt.

She barely stopped twirling in BIRTHDAY BLISS long enough for me to snap the pictures!

We plan on the Princess wearing a new Autograph Birthday Tshirt every year.

The shirts will make for a cute and memorable quilt for her high school graduation!

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY ~ Dedicated to all Moms!

Re-purposing: Prom Dress to Little Girl Party Dress (and TuTus?)

Sadly, the Conductor recently placed me on a "spending freeze" (this time for real!).  Of course this was GREAT cause for dilemma as I had recently  registered one of my Princesses into a fundraiser beauty pageant.
The pageant was to be an anual Bi-County Relay For Life effort to raise funds for the American Cancer Society. My little Princess contestant had  experienced a sudden growth spurt so this left us without anything for her to wear for the Beauty segment of the pageant. The requirements for the Wee Miss category called for a short or long party or Sunday/Easter dress.
After a failed attempt to find a suitable dress to borrow I was close to placing (risking) a temporary, unauthorized THAW on said spending freeze.
I found myself browsing one last time through our closets when I came across a well loved, slightly shambled prom dress.
I started to wonder...hmmmm...what if I cut here, sewed this, removed that...hmmmmm?

A (blurry) photo of the well loved and used prom dress I found in my closet.

Now, I am an avid reader of a lovely blog titled Make It And Love It. A popular feature of the blog is the authors remarkable ability to re-purpose ordinary household items and clothing into something new and fresh. I quickly referenced the blog and found a post for Re-purposing: Bubble Skirt. Again, I began to wonder....cut here...use this for that...sew that here..."GO GET MY MEASURING TAPE!"
My little beauty contestant Princess was ecstatic that  Mommy was going to try and turn the "Cinderella Dress" into a party dress JUST FOR HER!
Using my seam ripper and a tiny pair of scissors I began to take apart the dress. As I began the reconstruction I realized that I would need to remove the plastic boning from the dress and adjust the bodice...after all, my 5 year old is not a 34B! ;)

I removed the decorative belt from the dress and made straps that crossed in the back. I created a bubble skirt and filled it with the netting from the crinoline from the original dress.

 

(above: mobile uploads of Princess modeling her new Party Dress!)

The new dress was still missing something....a sash! I purchased 1 yard of satin for $5 and sewed a white bow sash to add to the dress.

This "Cinderella Dress" served our family well! First as a Pageant dress for my oldest Princess. Second as a Cinderella costume for me to wear to read stories to a preschool class.  Third as a Cinderella costume for (yes ME) trick or treating. Fourth as a dress up outfit (again ME!) at a 'mock sleepover' party my little Princesses hosted at our house. Fifth as a Party Dress for my beauty pageant Princess. And Finally the newest addition to our Princess Dress Up Rack!

Did I mention that I made a bow out of the scrap fabric from the original dress? :)

I managed to pull off the outfit with the $5 investment for the fabric for the sash and $8 for the socks that didn't even make it to the crowning ceremony before she ripped them off her little feet!

Overall, the contestants raised over $2,000 for the Isle of Wight-Surry County Relay For Life Team!!
Well, my little beauty pageant  Princess may or may not have stolen the show but she sure did provide the comic relief to break the suspense and anticipation of the crowning ceremony! The video isn't the best quality but it still shows why we are very proud of her for making he public statement on "why she relays". So be sure you have your volume turned up!
(see below)

Make your own slideshow design

(Did you notice her face when the emcee mentioned how much money the girls raised?)

I added (and TuTus?) to this post title because as I was typing this my little Princesses came running up to me dressed as "flowers". One Princess exclaimed, "Mommy, we re-did our TuTus into 'flower heads' like you re-did the Cinderella Dress!!" Their creativity and excitement PLEASED me so much! Of course I grabbed the camera and took some snaps of the "re-dids" to share!

YES, that's a TuTu on her "Valentine" and YES "Valentine" is tucked into her TuTu!

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY~Recently observed at Toys R Us***snicker, snicker***