Arabella is about to turn five, so I think it’s time to share the details of her 4th birthday party! The theme was “four-ever magical,” aka unicorns and mermaids. I scoured Pinterest for unicorn and mermaid party ideas, then combined them into a super fun four-ever magical birthday party at our house.
Decor
We had hoped to spend some of the party outside. But since her birthday is in March, we planned for it to be mainly inside. It was a good thing we did, since it turned out to be cold and rainy that day. The house we were living in then was very big, but it’s laid out in kind of a weird way, so it made sense to have most of the activities downstairs and all of the food upstairs. We decorated the downstairs (and stairway) mostly in mermaid items, and kept the unicorn things upstairs. The idea was to feel like you were entering a mermaid cove as you walked down the stairs, and going back into the land of unicorns upstairs!
The balloon arch I bought was a little more challenging to put together than others I have bought, and the coral reef streamers didn’t turn out exactly as I had anticipated. But I was happy with the overall look.
Activities
Toby’s mom is a retired art teacher, and we wanted to have a craft for the girls to do during the party. Jane was in charge of the craft station, and helped everyone make cute unicorns out of paper plates! We also had a pin-the-horn-on-the-unicorn game and various toys to play with. We moved the couch out of the way to give the girls more room. There was also a piñata, but we forgot to actually do it during the party. Whoops.
Food
Since the theme was four-ever magical and Arabella wanted both unicorns AND mermaids, I tried to have both represented in the food offerings… while also keeping them very kid-friendly. On the sweet side, I made a unicorn cake (similar to this one), as well as mermaid tail, rainbow, and unicorn cookies, and mermaid cupcakes.
Besides the excessive amount of desserts, I had a rainbow fruit plate, goldfish crackers, pita chips and hummus. I also had blue mermaid lemonade (Kool-Aid) and pink unicorn lemonade (raspberry lemonade with purple unicorn-shaped ice cubes) to drink.
Favors
I got unicorn headbands for the girls to wear during the party and take home after, along with their unicorn craft. I also got these cute mermaid favor bags, and put a wrapped cookie inside, along with mermaid bracelets and some unicorn stickers and coloring pages.
We probably should have had a little more savory food (e.g. macaroni and cheese with some seashell pasta, or maybe some chicken nuggets), but the party was after lunch and before dinner, so it worked out fine. We also would have loved to be able to use the unicorn bounce house, but it was just too cold. The most important thing was that all the girls had fun—especially Arabella!
Want to throw your own four-ever magical birthday party? Here are affiliate links to some of the items I used (other affiliate links above in the text):
The streamers, balloon arch, cupcake stand, jellyfish lanterns, table tutu, and balloon inflator pump are all from Amazon. I got the cake topper and invitations from Etsy but can no longer find the exact ones there. The flamingo punch bowl is from Mark & Graham, and the magical napkins, mermaid tablecloth, blue fringe backdrop and several other items were from Target. We also got a few things at Party City—including some helium balloons. And the ears on the unicorn cake are candles. They came as part of a set that I bought at the commissary (it also came with a little horn candle, but I preferred my ice cream cone horn).
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