Birthdays on a Budget?

So my daughter is turning 4 soon and wanted to have a Mermaid party. The major complication with that is that most of her friends from school, the neighborhood and her cousins are all boys. How do you have a boy Mermaid Party?

After much thought and trial and error we came up with the idea of a mermaid & pirate party. In the context of Peter Pan and a few of the films they go hand in hand. With the main theme in mind, my next great challenge was creating fun activities and decorations that might be fitting for these kids… on a TIGHT BUDGET.

I found on the Sewing section of CouponBuzz some ideas on places to get patterns to sew. I then found some cheap fabric in town and proceeded to make Mermaid Aprons and Pirate Bandannas for the kids. It only cost me about $3 for the fabric and $1 for the thread. The fabric I used was white so that at the party each child gets to use markers and color their own Mermaid or Pirate costume. I thought it would be a great way to entertain about 10 four year-olds during the middle of winter in the mountains of Utah.

For decorations I found some great cheap items at Shindigz Clearance section. Just a few little decorations can make a party really come alive!

Last of all I wanted to make a cake for the party that fit the theme as well. I do not have talent in the culinary arts! I can make a mean curry, but that doesn’t help at birthday parties. To buy a cake with a theme would be hard because of the Mermaid and Pirate theme. So here is what I did.

I found a large plastic ship that my kids have from a Noah’s ark set. I then made cupcakes and decorated them with just some fun colors on top. I took the cupcakes and placed them around the deck of the ship. Then I searched through my kids toy bins to find anything mermaid or pirate. To my great joy I found a little pirate toy that came in some kids meal and a mermaid Dora The Explorer doll. These 2 figurines were on the top level of the ship to make it really match the theme. It is so much more fun to create the events for your children!

Through the sources of CouponBuzz and imagination, we will have the party she really wanted!

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Tags: budget, cake, decorate, kids, parties