If you are looking for some great ideas for an upcoming Shark Birthday Party you are in the right place!
Two of my kids have had Shark-Themed Birthday Parties and they are so fun to plan!
Probably my favorite part is coming up with the fun Shark food ideas and creating the Shark birthday cakes.
While those are my favorites, planning the ocean-themed decorations and supplies is a blast to pick out and arrange too.
Keep reading for tons of ideas on planning a party that Shark Lovers will find “fin”tastic!
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Phrases for Your Shark Birthday Party
Let’s start with some of the phrases you can use for your Shark party.
These would be great for invitations, decorations at the party, or even on thank you notes.
There are lots of cute phrases you can incorporate into your Shark Birthday Party.
Most of them involve taking an everyday descriptive word and making it just a little bit more Sharky.
For example, are you hoping your Shark Birthday Party will be SHARKTASTIC?
Come up with any fun sentence using the word fantastic and simply switch it out to sharktastic! Another word you can use is FINtastic!
Or maybe you want to invite people over for a BITE at your Shark Birthday Party?
Use words like bite, chomp, nibble, and crunch to further your shark-themed party atmosphere.
Is your shark-loving kiddo wanting to have a JAWsome birthday party? Yep, you can replace awesome with jawsome.
PHRASES FOR SHARK PARTY INVITATIONS
If you want to make your invitations, there are tons of fun shark phrases you can use.
The phrases below fit into the category of being for a swimming party and a non-swimming party.
Swimming Party Shark Phrases:
“Swim on over for Sam’s Shark Party”
“Shark Infested Waters! Join us for a swim in the pool, if you dare!”
“Are you Brave enough to Swim with the SHARKS?!”
“Pool Party – Sharks Welcome!”
“Caution – Sharks in the Pool!”
Non-Swimming Shark Party Phrases:
“Join Sam for a Shark-Infested Party”
“Danger! Shark Zone!”
“Join us for a SHARKTASTIC Adventure”
“Come Enjoy a BITE at Sam’s Jawsome Shark Party”
“Sam’s having a FINTASTIC Shark Party!”
“Want to have a JAWSDROPPING Good Time?”
Shark Birthday Party Invitations
If you aren’t wanting to make your invitations with the phrases above, I highly recommend looking on Etsy.
This is where I turned to find the perfect Shark Birthday Party invitations.
My original plan was to have a blue and green “sea theme” shark party.
However, when I found these invitations, it instantly became a blue and red theme.
Choosing to add the red made the party seem more Shark-ish and less Under the Sea.
The invitations above are from Kimberly at Bloomberry Designs on Etsy. I
love the entire set-up of these invitations from the perfect lettering to the smallest details she designs, like all those tiny waves!
Kimberly was super responsive to my messages and the turn-around time for her to update using my information was very quick.
Even better, since this is a printable invitation, you don’t have to wait for shipping time! Check out these “SHARKTASTIC” Shark Invitations that I highly recommend.
Of course, you can also find fun Shark Birthday Party Invitations on Amazon too, like the ones below.
Shark Birthday Party Cake Ideas
The two cakes I have pictured are from my Mr. Middle Guy’s 5th and Mr. Oldest Guy’s 6th Birthdays.
This is a classic case of Little Brother remembering that Big Brother had a super-cool shark cake & wanting one too.
The cakes are very different, but both have a fun homemade shark theme.
Sprinkled Shark Birthday Cake
I consider this the easier of the two Shark Cakes. Using your favorite cake recipe, you need to use two 9″ Round Cake Pans to make it.
First, you will make the two 9″ cakes. Once cooled, you will need to mix your icing with blue & green food colors. If you want a more blue cake, then skip the green food coloring.
If you want there to be some white left in the icing, carefully fold the food coloring into the icing. When you spread it on the cake it will mix further.
Don’t forget to set a little white icing aside to make waves and pipe the shark.
Ice the bottom cake, then place the top cake on it and ice that as well. Now that you have your cake iced, it’s time to make the sprinkles shark!
MAKING THE SPRINKLES SHARK
This next step is to use a shark cookie cutter to decorate the top of your cake.
I only did one shark, but you could probably fit about 3 on a 9″ cake if you plan with your spacing.
Go ahead and gently place the shark cookie cutter onto the cake where you want your sprinkled shark, but barely push down.
Now you need to carefully put a layer of sprinkles inside the cookie cutter. I used a mix of sprinkles that were black, green, blue, and white.
You could use any color you prefer depending on the color of your icing. If I made this again, I think I would try a deeper blue icing with a silver-sprinkled shark!
Finishing the Sprinkles Shark Birthday Cake
You will need to lightly push the sprinkles you use into the icing. This is how they are going to stay in place when you remove the cookie cutter.
The back of a spoon works well to gently push the sprinkles into the icing, but for the tight squeezes, you will need to use something smaller, such as a toothpick.
Now very carefully remove the cookie cutter and hopefully not too many sprinkles will move around. If they do, use a toothpick and gently knock them off the cake.
Or if that seems tedious, just sprinkle a few all over the cake. The cookie cutter is going to pull up some of the icing too. You can use a toothpick to gently tuck back down any large chunks of icing that come up.
Now it’s time to outline the shark shape with white icing as well as make the waves. Using a pastry bag or my favorite cheat, a ziplock with the corner cut off, pipe around the edges of the sprinkled shark.
Making waves always reminds me of practicing cursive, swooping up and back down. You can add any message you want and your cake is officially complete!
Chomp Shark Birthday Cake
Cake & Icing for the Chomp Cake
This cake is a 9X13 sheet cake with two 9″ cakes on top, so you will need to double your cake recipe. For this cake, I used a Cake Board so that animals could be placed on the sides.
After making all the cakes, place your bottom 9X13 cake layer onto the platter and ice it using your preferred color of ocean blue.
Like the Sprinkled Cake above, I used Food Coloring Liqua-Gel to get the desired blue color. If you want to make some seaweed climbing up the cake, set a little icing to the side.
Now depending on what you are going to be using to decorate your cake, place one or two of the 9″ round cakes onto the iced base cake.
If you aren’t sure how much height you want, try stacking the cakes (before icing) and doing a mock run with your decorations.
For this cake, I felt I needed both 9″ rounds to keep the Shark Cage from falling over too far. Now, ice the round cakes that you used and get ready to decorate!
Sprinkles & Decorations for the Chomp Shark Cake
The decorations I used (sharks, cage, scuba diver & extra sea creatures) are all toys that my boys already owned. I did use most of the items from this Shark Attack Figure Playset By Animal Planet.
It seems to be harder to find that set each year, but this Shark Attack Set has a cage, a scuba diver, and two sharks that seem very similar.
If you are on the fence about the tiny sea creatures, they also make a great addition for bath time, your sandbox, or to take to the beach!
This set of Ocean Sea Animals even has a pufferfish and they are food-grade material!
How to Assemble the Chomp Shark Cake
First, place all of your large items onto the cake. This way you don’t regret putting a tiny lobster right where a shark would have fit best.
After the large items, place all of your tiny sea creatures on as well. At this point, you can use multi-colored sprinkles to fill in around the small sea creatures.
In my opinion, sprinkles are an amazing tool for covering up any “mistakes” you might have in your icing, so sprinkle liberally if needed.
Finally, it’s time to tackle the climbing seaweed. For the seaweed use the icing you set aside and make it green. Take the icing and spoon it into a sandwich-size ziplock bag. Now, the tricky part. You need to cut the corner off one end of the bag in a straight line.
Now, pipe up the cake, going in and out with the bag, to make the seaweed. Practice on something vertical first, if you’re not sure about how to pipe the seaweed.
How to make Shark Cookies
These Shark Cookies are one of my favorite cookies I have ever made! You can use the same Shark Cookie Cutter from the Sprinkled Shark Birthday Cake mentioned above.
I used a bagged sugar cookie mix for these and powdered sugar icing. The icing recipe is below:
ICING RECIPE
1 cup powdered sugar
2 teaspoons milk
Black Food Coloring or Grey if you can find it
Vanilla if you prefer, about 1/2 teaspoon
A lot of icing techniques teach bakers to make a thicker “border” icing and then a “flood” icing for the fill.
This is a great technique, but I wanted these cookies to not be perfectly flat so I made a thicker icing, dropped a bit onto the shark cookie & then spread it out to the edges with the back of the spoon.
It turned out great because it made variations and ripples that look very realistic to a shark’s skin.
Once the grey has hardened, use black icing to make the gills and the eyes. You will need white icing to make the mouth and some of the bellies of the sharks.
Shark Party Decorations
We kept our decorations pretty simple but used balloons as a big part of the decor.
This Shark Party Supplies Pack is what we use for plates, napkins, and small cups.
This Shark Splash Party Decorations pack was set up behind the cake table.
This large Shark Balloon was a favorite and these Latex Shark Balloons complemented it perfectly.
If you want more decoration ideas to check out then take a peek at our Ultimate List of Shark Party Supplies. It’s a straight forward list of ALL things SHARK. Seriously… we’ve found over 100+ shark party supplies!
Shark Party Favor Ideas
There are tons of shark-themed party favors that work great for use during the party, as well as for goodie bags.
If you want to make goodie bags, using red and blue candy along with a few fun shark items is an easy way to go.
A few candies that worked well were Starburst, Skittles, Jolly Ranchers, DumDum Suckers & Airheads.
A fun addition is to use shark teeth as a way to close the bag. Just make sure the shark teeth you order have a hole in the top or some other way to secure them around the goodie bag.
FAVORITE SHARK PARTY FAVOR IDEAS
The favorite party favor of all was the Shark Tooth Necklaces. These are rubber and therefore you don’t have to worry about them breaking or poking anyone.
I do recommend having some extra string around because the stings in our kit weren’t very long. Once they were put on and tied, the boys had trouble slipping them back off.
The second party favors were paper Shark Head Masks.
These did not stay on the kids as I had envisioned, they kept slipping off their ears. But they still held them on as they chased each other around and they were perfect for funny shark photos during a mini group photoshoot.
Our final Shark party favor is a classic. The super fun Shark Party Blowers.
Now, these didn’t make the honking sound some blowers do, but the paper sound was enough to please my boys and I truly didn’t mind they weren’t super noisy.
Shark Outfits for the Birthday Kid
Somewhere in the birthday shenanigans at my house, having a shirt that matched your birthday theme became a tradition.
Etsy is probably your best place to search for shirts that can be personalized with your child’s name or birthday number.
Then, of course, Amazon is going to have lots of options. I’ve noticed some of their shirts aren’t available for the awesome 2-day shipping, so keep an eye on your time frame.
One of my favorites is this Shark Raglan Tee from 7 ate 9.
Another favorite is this youth Jaws Movie Poster T-shirt!
Games for a Shark Party
There are lots of fun shark-related games but the two games that are favorites are the Trampoline Shark Tank & Parachute Shark Bounce.
TRAMPOLINE SHARK TANK GAME
This Trampoline game is super simple. You place tons of blue, green, white, and maybe a few big red balloons into your trampoline enclosure.
Along with the balloons, to make it a true Shark Tank, you need to also add some inflatable sharks!
Now, the easiest thing is to just let the kid jump and have fun with their ocean trampoline set-up.
Or they can split into small teams with a shark each and use the inflatable sharks to try and knock the other team’s balloon color out of the trampoline.
If you give kids a ton of balloons and a trampoline, trust me they will take care of the fun themselves!
PARACHUTE SHARK TANK GAME
The Parachute Shark Game can be done using a real Parachute or a bedsheet can work in a pinch too.
All you need to play is more balloons and blow-up sharks. Simply place all of the balloons & sharks onto the middle of the parachute and start moving it up and down.
When a shark goes flying off the trampoline, the kids can let go and try to grab it. But, the trick to this game is that if they let go and don’t catch it they are out.
Keep playing until the last two people, adults might need to help them shake it at this point. Whoever is the last one to be holding the shark is your winner.
QUIETER SHARK ACTIVITIES
Also, check out these two free printable Shark Activities for Kids. They are great for downtime during the party or as a great addition to your goody bags!
First, there is this Shark Word Scramble. It’s full of fun shark-themed words just waiting to be unscrambled!
Next, there is also a fun Shark Cutting Worksheet. Kids will love cutting through the silly sharks!
Hopefully, you found some great ideas for your upcoming Shark Party! If you are having trouble finding shark supplies in stores, make sure to check out our Ultimate List of Shark Party Supplies.
It’s a straightforward list of over 100 shark party supplies. Hopefully, it can help you save some time & have an amazing Shark Birthday Party!
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