Under The Sea Party

Wow what a summer! With two of my girls now so active in sports I'll really need to be on my A game these days. SO, without further ado, I want to catch up with some pictures and information on my oldest party that was delayed at the end of the school year. (Which is important since I am in the midst of creating a princess party for my youngest.)

It was an "Under the Sea" themed birthday party with a screening of "Soul Surfer." My oldest has loved the sea theme for many years and we have re-done this party so many times I really wanted some fresh ideas. Some oldies stuck around this year too though., and this is best demonstrated by the food. We made a "buffet" of fruit, veggies, mac and cheese and octopus hotdogs....these hot dogs have been a hit at my house for 11 years, when I first saw them on a kids show. Did I just say 11? Oh my! They are so simple to make it's a big bang for the buck.

These are so simple to create. First of all find some good, fat hotdogs since you'll have to cut eight "arms." Next, using a sharp knife cut the hot dog in half but only go about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way up. Then half those long sections you've cut, to create four pieces. Lastly halve all those long cuts again for eight octopus legs. That's the trickiest part. For the eyes I simple used my knife to cut a small section out and again for a mouth. (Yes I know their mouth are underneath). Lastly, place them into a large pot of vigorously boiling water one and watch the arms curl up. To avoid and amputations I only put two of them in at a time and place them onto a plate or tray as they come out. Even the teenagers thought they were cool. :)

Next on the menu were some other fancy sea food items...made with fruit and veggies though....I was able to cut a watermelon into a somewhat recognizable sea turtle, and make a silly octopus out of a pepper which my littlest loved so much I never got a great picture, LOL. The colors of the party were pink, blue,green and orange. so of course we had some cheese puff balls for snack during the movie. :)

I cut one end of the watermelon into a "back" then sorted through pieces to cut into rough shapes for flippers and a head...toothpicks held it all together.

He never looked spectacular like the one on the Disney craft ideas page, but he was cute and all the girls liked him...toothpicks again. :)

Now for the "crafty" portion of the party...my oldest loved the Lettering Delights set of "Something Fishy" so we used all those elements for her invitations and decoration s and for color inspiration. Her invite was created using the graphics set and Photoshop Elements, and her cake was cut using the cricut cake and the SVG set. I made the cut outs and she put them onto her cake...the sand was made with Nilla Wafers, the seaweed was fruit roll ups, and the rest is all cut from Wilton pre-made gumpaste...her favorite is the puffer fish so he got "top billing"

My typical simple goodie bags in the background. ;)

The fruit roll ups are from Target and have cool "glitter flecks" in them.

I just had to add Mr. Crab...

 K also wanted to help with decorations so we used the a fishing net decoration from Oriental Trading and the same graphic set from Lettering Delights. We simply printed them out and K cut around them and placed them in the netting. Since this was a reschedule of her party we simply used "celebrate" from the lettering set, printed out and punched with a circle punch to imitate bubbles.

We added some balloons around as well as some paper lanterns from the dollar store to ,ake the sleeping area more festive and it was a party!

You can't just eat and watch a movie, so I broke out my trusty "Riddle Me"  scavenger hunt creator software and made up a quick set of clues with a question for each of the guests. You download the software from their site here.

At the end of the hunt, the girls found a bucket with supplies to create their own flipflops! The bucket contained a pair for each girl, including my two younger girls, and pre-cut ribbons in colors that coordinated with the party. Plus some fun Leis... I bought a huge amount of ribbon from Papermart.com and I love the double sided sating we got for this project

The girls all came up with their own ideas and color combos...here is what my oldest created.

My daughter loved being a big part of the planning and creative efforts which made me so happy to work together with her. She has a nice group of friends and I hope they had a good time too! )