So, for my daughter's first birthday we chose an 'Under the Sea' theme. (She loves fish!) I thought it came out adorable, and so did everyone who went. Mind you, I got most of this stuff off of Pinterest, but I put my own spin on a few things. And it was my very first time EVER using fondant or making a two-tier cake. Not bad for an amateur, huh?
The balloon & tablecloth ceiling idea, which I think altogether cost less than $20, I got from DesignDazzle via Pinterest. We used a ton of thumbtacks to stick them to the walls and the effect was really neat.
My blue velvet sandy cupcakes were probably my favorite part of the whole table. They were so easy and so gorgeous. I even made the chocolate shells myself using a starfish & shell candy mold from Micheal's and meltable morsels from the grocery store. (Butterscotch, milk chocolate and white chocolate for the swirly effects.) I used sprinklebake on TastyKitchen's recipe for Blue Velvet Cupcakes and in place of their frosting, spread just a bit of buttercream (leftover from my cake) and dipped them upside-down into a bowl of well-smashed graham crackers. One more drop of buttercream + chocolate shell = voila! Lovely (and DELICIOUS) little beach cakes. :)
My sugar cookie clams got some laughs and were pretty tasty, too. In an attempt to copy several more attractive, elegant sugar cookie clams (like HWTM's, or several others on Pinterest), I made sugar cookies from a basic recipe that came out too thin and cripsy (it may have been my fault, I have cheap pans, too) but worked anyways. A bit of homemade buttercream (recipe to follow), white Sixlets for pearls (local party store, white gumballs or jawbreakers would probably be bigger and look better), and googly eyes stuck on with more buttercream. (Don't eat the googly eyes!)
Easy Sugar Cookie Recipe (by Stephanie via Allrecipes.com)
Ingredients
-2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
-1 teaspoon baking soda
-1/2 teaspoon baking powder
-1 cup butter, softened
-1 1/2 cups white sugar
-1 egg
-1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Set aside.
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in egg and vanilla. Gradually blend in the dry ingredients. Roll rounded teaspoonfuls of dough into balls, and place onto ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden. Let stand on cookie sheet two minutes before removing to cool on wire racks.
Simple Buttercream Frosting (from Savorysweetlife.com)
Ingredients
-1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks or 1/2 pound), softened (but not melted!) Ideal texture should be like ice cream.
-3-4 cups confectioners (powdered) sugar, SIFTED
-1/4 teaspoon table salt
-1 tablespoon vanilla extract
-up to 4 tablespoons milk or heavy cream
Directions
Beat butter for a few minutes with a mixer with the paddle attachment on medium speed. Add 3 cups of powdered sugar and turn your mixer on the lowest speed (so the sugar doesn’t blow everywhere) until the sugar has been incorporated with the butter. Increase mixer speed to medium and add vanilla extract, salt, and 2 tablespoons of milk/cream and beat for 3 minutes. If your frosting needs a more stiff consistency, add remaining sugar. If your frosting needs to be thinned out, add remaining milk 1 tablespoons at a time.
The watermelon shark I can't even take credit for. My wonderful boyfriend, Alex used one picture I got off of Watermelon.org's carving page and hacked away at a watermelon for a while. I believe he just cut the base off, cut a large wedge out of the top, gutted it, and used the cut out pieces to make fins. Do the teeth last, and fill with desired fruit! It was a huge hit at the party.
The octopus dips were hilarious! Definitely an idea I took from Familyfungo via Pinterest. We used three different colored bell peppers and whatever dips we wanted. The recipe's page suggests black olive eyeballs for a completely edible octopus, but nobody touched ours anyways so it didn't hurt that I was lazy and used googly eyes again. :)
We took various flavors of Goldfish crackers, Swedish fish and blue tortilla chips and put them into fish bowls. The sandwiches were your basic tuna salad and we used jumbo star cookie cutters to cut them out (another job for Dada). Then all you need are labels: 'Fish & Chips' and 'Starfish Sandwiches'!
My cake... could have been better. It was my first experience with fondant, and after watching several tutorials (like this one) I decided to tackle it. It was fine, really, not too difficult once I got the hang of it and the outcome was pretty nice. My problem was that I didn't order enough fondant and I was decorating the cake at midnight the night before the party. So I buttercreamed (?) the top tier and used the food coloring spray (nifty stuff, really) to color it. In retrospect, the fondant seaweed and crappy fish didn't come out great but the rest of it was very pretty. I sat the cake in a tray filled with brown sugar, sugar cookie sand dollars, my chocolate shells and starfish, and plopped a bit of that mix on top, too. It was still a fun cake, and I learned a lot. Like either make the entire cake fondant or the entire cake buttercream. Oh, well.
I didn't get a chance to do half of the things I wanted to or planned, but it all still came out really nice and I got lots of compliments. Our next party will be better! If you want a TON of links and ideas for your 'Under the Sea'/Ocean/Fish party, check out the board I used on Pinterest:
Feel free to repin and share!
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