I‘m always on the hunt for cute ways to add fun twists on birthday parties. When Brittany of GreyGrey Designs sent over this ocean themed first birthday I fell in love!  Throwing an under-the-sea bash in January is a perfect way to change it up and add even more fun to an already adorable birthday!

Brittany worked with the always awesome Piggy Bank Parties to create the cutest printables– starting with an invitation that perfectly set the tone for this underwater adventure!

Using the simple beauty of the ocean as her inspiration, Brittany created decor in shades of sand, aqua and coral and focused on “natural” elements like fish and coral, rather than mermaids.

Brittany created an oceanscape as her dessert table, with the water as the background and a sandy beach in the foreground.  To make the backdrop, she used yards of crepe fabric pinned onto points. A lower level of glittery mesh usually used for formal dresses added a touch of sparkle and girlieness! To add height and interest, she spray painted hat boxes to use in place of cake stands, and embellished them with seashell necklaces and trimmed the smaller ones with “sand” scrapbook paper. To hold the white chocolate lollipops and sugar cookies, Brittany covered styrofoam with sand scrapbook paper and a coat of edible “sand”– brown and white sugar mixed together!

Adorable seashell letters spelled out the birthday gir’s name above the display and were made by gluing real shells from the craft store onto wooden letters.  Brittany used Gorilla Glue to make sure they stuck.

Resourceful and cute– Brittany grabbed clearance christmas ornaments to make bubbles. She removed the silver tops, left the wire toggle inside and threaded them with clear craft lacing to hang and give a floating effect.

The snacks and sweets for this party were just as fun and of course theme-appropriate!  The birthday girl’s mommy, Kristin, made all of the cupcakes for the party, along with a smash cake for sweet Emma Kate, the birthday girl.  Fabulous fondant toppers from Lynlee’s Petite Cakes added the perfect touch–clam shells with pearls topped the cupcakes and the smash cake had the birthday girl’s name with starfish for the A’s!

Suckers By Steph made adorable “Lowtide lollipops” from white chocolate in shell shapes and Whimsy Cookie Co baked up a batch of darlings sea-themed cookies for more sweet treats!

On the savory side, tons of theme-appropriate snacks fueled the party guests: crabby dip, clamwiches, seaweed spinach dip and conch shell pizza cups! YUM!

Emma Kate’s high chair was even transformed into a seashell for the event by pinning coral fabric to a form cut out of foam and covering the rest of the chair in cream fabric.  An adorable banner from Piggy Bank Parties hung as a backdrop.