Cupcakes, decorations, and photos by Donaville Herrick

As promised, here is a look at my daughter’s fourth birthday party.

Throwing parties for little ones can be costly, especially if there’s a specific theme involved. My daughter asked for a mermaid/ocean-themed party, and after researching what it would cost for decorations and desserts, we were looking at spending well into the hundreds of dollars.

Ouch! said our wallets.

So instead of shelling out $hundreds, the Mr. and I decided to take the DIY route and make the decorations and and desserts, nothing over-the-top, and we spent about $30 in all the decorations and desserts. Yes, $30.

All decorations (streamers, tissue paper, and table cloth) totalled under $10 and desserts (DIY cupcake, DIY clam cake, and store-bought madeleines) were another $20.

The birthday girl had fun helping out with decorating (and eating) the desserts, too.

The inspiration:

• The water: inspiration for the water was from this waterfall backdrop from this wedding featured on Ruffled.
• The seaweed: I borrowed the idea for the seaweed from this birthday party (really fun activities/ideas in that party).
• The tissue paper pom poms: We initially wanted to hang the sea-urchin pom poms from the ceiling, but then I had a last-minute idea to place the pom poms separately behind the desserts. I followed an easy how-to from Martha Stewart (each one takes about 5 – 10 minutes to make)
• The cupcakes: sea urchin cupcakes were inspired by these sea urchin cakes from this amazing mermaid party.

Manual typewriter by David Ellingsen

I recently came across these hauntingly beautiful installations by photographer David Ellingsen. The photos are from part one in a series entitled Obsolete Delete, which David describes is “the speed of technological obsolescence, the environment, and the collision of the two.”

It’s amazing how rapidly technology has changed within the past twenty years. Casette tapes? CRTs? Those are things my children will probably never use when they’re grown. The only technology from my childhood that I still keep with me is a VCR and VHS tapes, mostly a collection of Disney Classics that my little dearests watch on occasion, so VHS tapes aren’t something are foreign to them. But technology from my parents and grandparents past? Those are historic relics in my childrens eyes.