My daughter recently requested a Caribbean themed party with dolphins for her 5th birthday.

This would have been super easy if it was summer and if we had a pool (and a backyard!) but for a New York City party in the fall, it took a little creativity. Read on to see my tips for hosting a festive, fun and relatively easy Caribbean themed birthday party…

Part one – Create an Under the Sea look

1) Blow up a million (or two hundred) balloons in varying shades of blue and spread them on the floor and/or hang them from the ceiling. I found these tiny tiny hooks from Command that made hanging super easy. Add in some giant beach balls, pool floats, mermaid dolls and inflatable blue dolphins…

2) Decorate the walls with crepe paper streamers in varying shades of green to look like seaweed. I used glue dots to make it nice and easy. Hang a happy birthday banner or letters, add some balloons (giant floating pina colada? Yes, please!), drape raffia around the table, add colorful decorations and you’re set.

3) Make some adorable fish out of paper lanterns….I just bought matching paper for the fins and tails and traced out a pattern. Finish them with pom pom eyes and big red fish lips and hang with fishing wire. Too cute.

Part two – Add some fun activities

4) Photo booths are fun for kids and adults. Tape a border to the wall, hang some pom pom flowers and throw some fun props and picture frames into a big colorful tub and you’re all set.

5) My daughter is obsessed with Dolphins ever since we saw the Dolphin Tale 2 preview with The Moms. Move over donkey, we decided to play Pin the Tail on the Dolphin.

6) Have a face painter, balloon twister and/or magician on hand or get some adults to help with these activities. Temporary fish or mermaid tattoos are another easy option.

Part three – Time to chow down

7) We served goldfish crackers (of course), tropical fruit kebobs, and shell mac and cheese with hot dog octopuses (thanks Pinterest!). To drink we had pink lemonade, kiddie pina coladas, juices and water in fun palm tree and coconut cups with krazy straws.

8) For the cake, she wanted a crab on top which was a strange request but I was just happy she didn’t say lobster. I made a round blue and white cake with candy/pretzel palm trees, a brown sugar beach and blue candy ocean (sixlets, m&ms, Jelly Belly, and rock candy. Oh my). I made the crab out of red fondant and it was much easier than I expected. If you’ve ever handled Play Doh, you’ll have no worries here.

9) I made mini fish cupcakes for the kids because I didn’t want 14 kids screaming at me telling me which part of the cake they had to have. Is this just a NYC thing? Anyway, the cupcakes were a little time consuming because you need to sort the mini m&ms and make the different colored frosting but they were super cute.

Part four – Send them home

10) After two hours, your ears will be throbbing and everyone will be ready to go home. For a parting gift, we gave everyone these cute HEXBUG Aquabot fishies which fit in nicely with the theme and didn’t involve candy. That’s a win win in birthday party world. Some of my other ideas were kinetic sand and make your own dolphin out of clay kits.

And there you have it. Although this was a birthday party, I think these ideas could be tweaked for a cute Caribbean themed baby shower as well. For more fun party ideas, follow me on Pinterest.

 

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