Splish Splash Birthday Bash

Get tons of ideas for a luau or water themed party.

Summer may be winding down, but my daughter still wanted a summery birthday party. She really wanted a water theme, so we decided to call it a “Splish Splash Birthday Bash”.

Let’s start with the invitations, shall we? They were shaped like flip flops. Tutorial found HERE.

A party always feels more like a party when there’s a piñata, amiright?! We went with a fish to fit our water theme. Here’s a similar fish piñata if you’re in the market.

We set up a snow cone station:

Recognize the weatherproof tassel garland? I made the sign, borrowed the snow cone machine, and used Torani syrups for flavoring. The paper cones were clearance from WalMart and came with scoopy straws. Love those.

One of our main decorations was the wave wall. I got a 50 yard roll of blue gossamer and stapled it to the fence to mimic water waves. The staple gun worked like a charm and came out super easy after the party. Now I can reuse the gossamer for another party! Then I hooked fishing line through the nozzle of a few beach balls and hung them on the fence.

The food table was bright and cheerful.

Don’t you love the huge paper lanterns?! They added so much color and pizazz!

I got to reuse the picnic set I bought at a thrift store and painted.

I made simple cupcakes, piped on aqua frosting and added cute paper umbrellas.

I made a sucker bouquet in a sand bucket by putting a piece of florist foam in the bucket, covering it with crunched up paper, then poking the sticks down into the foam.

And the last snack we had was fish crackers, also served in a (new and clean) sand bucket.

All of the party activities involved water. We did a slip-and-slide, played a relay game involving very wet sponges, and played one of our family’s favorite games, The Water Game.

The Water Game

• Choose a category. Some of our favorites are: zoo animal, state in the U.S.A., candy bar, color, Disney movie or superhero.
• One person is IT. They choose a specific item in the category. For example, if the category was zoo animals, they could choose giraffe.
• Going around the circle, each child thinks of a zoo animal and says it out loud. When someone guesses “giraffe”, the IT person gets to throw water on them!
• The person who guessed correctly gets to be the new IT.

I had so much fun planning this party. There were so many great ideas that I dedicated a whole Pinterest board to it! You can check it out HERE for more pool/summer/water party ideas.