Most of the Under the Waves parties I threw were scuba diving parties for teens/adults. Not that many people would be throwing a scuba diving party so I'm going to make this more generic so that you could adapt it to any version of Under the Waves party you want to have - marine life, mermaid, pool party, etc.
invitations
I love pop up invitations. They're simple to make and visually appealing.
But if you're not up to trying your hand at a pop up invitation, then here's a simple invitation you can make.
Here's the template:
For the blue outside shell, I used blue shimmer card stock to give the face of the card a bit more pizazz.
For the inside white paper I used standard computer paper. Print your invitation info on the white paper BEFORE cutting it into a shell shape. Much easier to get it centered and to fit so it looks correct.
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Glue the white paper to the blue shell paper using a craft glue stick. I use a small wallpaper seam roller when doing this to make sure the paper glues on without wrinkles and is firmly secured.
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For the pearl you want to use a pearl craft bead WITHOUT ANY HOLE IN IT FOR BEADING...like these from Walmart.
Attach the pearl with a hot glue gun and a dab of hot glue.
You can go a little fancier still by incorporating blue glitter paper on the outside of the card as well. This card doesn't fold, you attach the two halves together using a brad.
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Customize it on the front to reflect the variety of the Under the Waves party you're throwing, If you're throwing a Mermaid party, then put a Mermaid on the front of the card, for example
staging & props
I want my guests to FEEL like they're underwater when I stage this party. I'll teach you a simple lighting trick in order to make that happen.
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You aready know I start with a focal wall. For this party, my living room wall with the windows facing the lake will be my focal wall. I found the photo backdrop below and LOVE LOVE LOVE it. You can purchase the backddrop from KATE for $120.
Having been a scuba diver I can assure you that the environment under any waves is not 2 dimensional like a photo backdrop is! It is very much a 3D environment. Therefore, I'd build a 3D version of this backdrop and make it into a bit of a dining alcove.
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The arch structure itself can be made out of corrugated, the pillars out of carpet rolls and mailing tubes, plastic bowls with scalloped edges can be used at the top of the pillars. Raffia can be hung from the arch and to make the draping in back, I could use the same chiffon fabric I'm going to drape my ceiling in.
The rocks I can gather from the woods and lake around my home.
And it would cost me considerably less than $120.00.
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To give my guests the impression they're under water, I'd drape
light blue chiffon fabric from my ceiling to give them the illusion of having waves over their heads.
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Because my ceilings are so large I'd cover only the living room and area over the dining table.
I'd buy a 70 yard roll of chiffon fabric wholesale from Fabric Direct so it
would work out to $4.29 per yard. It would cost at least twice as much buying from a fabric store.
You can also get the affect of waves over guests heads using blue and white crepe paper rolls as shown below left.
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If you're going to use that technique then you want to loosely twist the streamers every so often as you drape them across the ceiling.
The second wall in my living room to tackle would be the wall my couch is on.
The second thing I'd do is change every single normal light bulb in my staged areas to blue light bulbs.
Here you can see what that would do...
And here's what the dining alcove would look like under blue light...
This left only the wall with my TV to stage. The only thing I did there was hang fringe curtains to cover the wall. $8. I played an aquatic scene on my TV.
I want you to use your imagination for a second. You're standing facing the wall my living room sofa is on. On either side of that wall perpendicular to it are the alcove dining area and the TV wall. I just want to give you an idea of what the entire room would look like under blue light.
Now we can even take it a step further if we want to, using lighting. I could break my light projectors out of mothballs and project this onto the walls and ceiling.
I love the whimsical affect of what looks like a man falling out of the boat at right.
There are a variety of light projectors on the market, many of them under $50. They just sit on the floor or on a table.
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If using a light projector, you could even do away with draping your ceiling and just let the light projector images give your guests they're underwater.
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You can do a lot with staging simply using light.
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My house is decorated in what I can only call the "Northwoods Lake House" style so as far as props go, it lends itself to an Under the Waves party,
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But if you don't live on a lake house, no worries! You don't need to in order to stage a great Under the Waves party,
Using your wire cutters, cut the pipe cleaners in half. One at a time, insert a pipe cleaner into the rounded top of the styrofoam half ball. Pull the pipe cleaner back out and with your glue gun, out a dab of glue into the pipe cleaner hole. Insert the pipe cleaner piece back into the hole to glue it in place.
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Continue doing this until the top of the styrofoam half ball is covered in pipe cleaners. Then gently bend the anemone's "spikes" into position as shown in the anemone photo. That's it, you're done!
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Now let's stage our table using your sea anemone
There are several different methods for making DIY jellyfish but this tutorial from Arts & Crackers makes the most realistic looking jellyfish and is inexpensive to do.
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I'm always painting something so keep a roll of plastic painter's dropcloth on hand that I used to make my jellyfish. I found the plastic bowls for the heads of the jellyfish at Dollar Tree for $1.25 apiece. Amazon also carries them.
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Here's another really easy and inexpensive DIY sea anemone.
You'll need:
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Hot glue gun
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Wire cutters
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1/2 styrofoam balls as shown at right
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Enough pipe cleaners to cover the rounded top of the
styrofoam half ball, in the colors shown in the
anemone photo
Glitter fish from Oriental Trading Company $7
Sand dollars & starfish from Amazon $13
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The sea plant came from my craft stash but you can use an artificial aquarium plant.
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As long as we're on the subject of staging the dining table, might as well finish it up. Your tablescape will depend on what kind of Under the Waves party you're throwing. Is it a party for kids or adults? What type of food are you planning on serving - snacks only, buffet, more formal sit down dinner?
One of my adult Under the Waves party was a day of scuba diving followed by a little more formal sit down dinner so I'll use that as an example here.
I already had blue cloth napkins to go with the plates. I found this cute whimsical napkin holder with the Lifesaver candy attached so I tied the napkins with that.
I don't normally use placemats for a sit down dinner but in this case I had fishnet covering the top of the table so I wanted a nice even surface for the place settings, guests not getting their eating utensils caught in the fish netting, etc.
I don't remember now where I got the placemats but they were similar to the one at left. Etsy maybe?
At any rate, I had two sets of dishes to choose from for the table - a white set and a white and blue set.
There was so much white on the placemat that the white set kind of "got lost" against the placemat so I went with the white and blue set and then just used my every day flatware that's gold in color.
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I did put a gold charger plate under the dinner plate. I already had the charger plates so...why not?
food/menu
I'll show you both menus for the more formal sit down dinner and for a kids Under the Waves party. My chef friend, Jeff helped me plan the more formal dinner and prepared it for my adult scuba diving party. We dove most of the day but then took a break to have a cocktail/hors d'ouvres hour as we'd planned a later evening dinner. We filled the space between the cocktail hour and late dinner with activities.
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For an Under the Waves party one's mind automatically goes to a seafood menu. But as Jeff pointed out to me, quite a few people have seafood allergies or they just don't care for seafood. Luckily that wasn't the case with any of my guests...but you might want to keep that in mind when planning your party and serve both seafood and some non-seafood items.
COCKTAIL HOUR
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Jeff made up a charcuterie board for starter, containing smoked salmon chunks, scallops, prawns, clams, and tuna chunks. It included melted butter and homemade seafood sauce. We substituted fried clams on the half shell for the shrimp on the board as we'd made up Garlic Grilled Shrimp Cocktail in individual servings. We garnished the board with olives and lemon wedges.
Jeff had made up a big tray of Balsamic Strawberry Bruschetta and I'd pre-prepared some cocktail meatballs.
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We also set out some seaweed chips with dip.
dinner menu
Since none of my guests had seafood allergies or disliked seafood, we could go with an all seafood menu. But we didn't want to do a typical seafood dinner like the restaurant variety. We wanted to go just a little bit off beat.
SEAFOOD LASAGNA
menu for kids
These shell candy favors are perfect for and Under the Waves party.
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You can get a 10 piece set of them at Walmart for $6.34
activities
fish toss game
I looked forward to this game at our church bazaar every year, except we played for live goldfish.
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All you need are some plastic cups nearly filled with water, some ping pong balls and some little prizes for some of the cups.
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Guests try to get the ping pong balls in the cups with the prizes to win that prize.
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You can purchase the game from Carnival Savers or make your own.
duck matching game
This game is more for the kids. You can purchase it from Carnival Savers or DIY. If you DIY do not use rubber ducks as they tend to tip over.
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The bottom of each duck gets marked with symbols. Each player gets 3 tries to find 2 ducks with matching symbols. If they find a match they win a prize.​
Kids love a good old fashioned game of Go Fish.
These oversized cards from Amazon make it easy for them to play.
slip n slide
Both kids and adults like racing each other on a Slip 'n Slide and what better way to cool off on a hot day?
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This heavy duty slide is available from Amazon
hire a mermaid
An up and coming thing is to hire live mermaids for your Under the Waves party.
There are several companies that do this across the country - like Traveling Mermaid Productions.
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If you don't have access to a hire a mermaid company, do you have a firendwho would be willing to be a mermaid at your party?
visit an aquarium
Tour an aquarium in your area as one of your activities. I've toured many aquariums in this country and we have some truly awesome ones!