Ocean themed birthday party

A friend of mine won a service I offered at our church womens group service auction. I offered up hosting a party- I plan and host it, they *just* had to pay for the goods involved (not my time and energy :)

She chose for the theme Under the sea! Seems a bit popular on this blog as of late. I honestly wasn't at all an influence on her choice, surprising??
I was a bit disappointed at first as I wanted to expand my horizons, but 20 seconds later I was really excited to be doing ocean again.

I've mentioned this before, and I'll say it again.
I LOVE FONDANT!!
Could these be any cuter??
The crabs and turtles you've seen before, but I added a friendly whale.

Including a birthday whale for the birthday girl.

My original idea was to have the lanterns look like bubbles around the room, but things got a big crazy and we ended up hanging them across the room in a line.

The party was outside for the most part, so I didn't want to do much on the inside decorations. The table is, however missing the little umbrellas I bought for it. I still have no idea where they disappeared to.

Dessert & Favor table

I scoured the internet for ideas for this party, and of course it's no surprise that there are A TON of great and creative ideas!!

The birthday banner was made with my Silhoutte- my favorite paper craft tool!!

How cute is a goldfish bar?? I got lots of ideas from this post, and the goldfish bar was one of them.

I wanted to jazz up the obvious choice of using Swedish fish. :)

"Sushi" We've been making these for years. I believe I first saw the idea at family fun magazine.

However, when I just did a google image search for "fruit roll up sushi", I was blown away with how far it's come since I originally saw the idea. And you think *I* go overboard?? Just go do the search and you'll think I'm a simpleton.

I love candy coating marshmallows. SO EASY and so fun. I added blue sprinkles to them.
The pixie sticks can be purchased individually at Party City. Lots of candy can- as well as at grocery store candy bins. I love to shop for candy in bulk bins when I'm trying to buy specific colors.

Dum Dum lollipops wrapped in purple tissue paper. I "planted" them in a bed of uncooked rice. They stood up perfectly. If I had the time, I would have colored the rice blue.

This oh so cute fish cake pop stand was copied  inspired by This idea.

I used glitter cardstock in aqua colors. I was covered in glitter for a few days after making it. I'm such a sparkly person :)

Fish cake pops!! I loved the idea here. I made a few changes. My favorite part was the heart candy confetti used for the mouth. These cakepops were almost scratched from my party plans after a 105 degree heat index  day which included 85% + humidity. Not fun conditions for cake pop making. Even my basement wasn't a safe haven for making them.

I used starburst for the fins. It was STICKY!

Incidently, at the party, the starburst had dried up, and the fish weren't sweating any longer.

Starfish chocolate covered Oreos. I used Wilton dark chocolate candy coating. The stars are made from star burst candy. I went through the trouble of making a cute dot pattern on the starfish, but then with the humidity, they kind of stuck inside the plastic. If you decide to make these and will be in any kind of heat, I'd skip those kind of details. (I'm sure you're probably thinking you'd skip most of the details that I put into things by now)

The favor part of the table had bubbles

Go fish cards which I bought a the Dollar store in a variety three pack (so they ended up only being about $.33 each)

Shovels which came with the buckets

Fishes

And MY FAVORITE PART!!

Ocean in a bottle.

I used Target's Market Pantry brand flavored water bottles because I liked the size and shape.

They are filled with two orange fishes-like the ones on the table cloth in the previous picture

water with blue food coloring, and baby oil. I hot glued the lids on

The kids played a relay game with fins.  

Played on a inflatable waterslide

and had a bubble machine.

Happy Birthday my little fish friend.

Superhero birthday party!!

Jedi had a superhero birthday party for his 5th birthday  several years ago.

We started with an evite invitation that said this:

Superhero Headquarters is now recruiting new candidates for their Superhero Program. One of our top secret superheroes in training has named you as a friend with special powers that make you a perfect choice for our program. You know him by his code name: "Jedi".

Join us at our Superhero headquarters for your superhero training.
Everything you need will be provided to you, no need to dress up.

Please RSVP and tell us the following information about you:

Super power
Favorite color
Your Super Hero name

We will be having some super hero snacks and treats during our training, so please notify us of any "weaknesses" you may have- Kryptonite, Brussels sprouts, peanuts (other allergies).

WE CAN'T WAIT TO SEE YOU HERE!

I think one of my favorite parts of this party was seeing what all the kids/parents came up with for their name and power. We had Lavender Lightning- with super speed, Bubblegum girl- could make giant bubbles, Fire Laser man...you guessed it- can shoot fire and laser.

Jedi was "FREEZE-OR-BURN"  and could do just that.

I made capes and masks for all the kids. The capes were made with pieces of felt and I added a logo to it depending on their superhero name. I made the masks out of silly foam. I googled superhero mask templates. I don't remember where I found them.

 Lavender Lighting

 Bubblegum girl

Freeze-or-burn

 The superhero crew

Demonstrating their powers. (notice the girl in the left front corner and the boy in the left rear in red "turned invisible")

While we waited for all the kids to arrive, we had the kids color superhero pictures I printed from the Internet, or they could color on the butcher paper we put on the table.

 Then came the training...

Get them limber!!

 Then an obstacle course. They had to walk a wobbly blank, run on tiles without getting hit by balls that were flying by,

 Climb through a tunnel,

 then leap over a ottoman. They could "fly" over it if they felt they had harnessed that power already.

Then each superhero received their cape and mask. They were SO excited!

We then played pin the cape on Superman, and some of the kids seemed to have x-ray vision and could see through the blindfold.

And had lunch. Hero sandwiches with fresh fruits and veggies.

After lunch, they learned that an evil villain had found the location of their training and threw a bunch of kryptonite in the room hoping to make them lose their powers.

They each took turns picking up the kryptonite and putting them in a "lead" storage chamber.

Next was a team building exercises where we broke them into two teams and races to get giant floor puzzles done before the other team. It was a tie!! We were so happy to hear it because we knew that the evil villain would be back and it would take the whole superhero team working together to defeat him!!

 They lifted "100lb" weights with ease as they built up their superhero muscles! (wrapping paper tubes with balloons on each end)

We heard the villain telling the superheroes he planned to defeat them. They all gathered in the superhero clubhouse to come up with a plan.

They tickled him until he promised to be good!!

I made a volcano cake with superman saving a lumberjack. Looking back at it, I would have done it so differently if I was making it today. BUT, the kids loved it. I used jolly ranchers melted and poured to look like lava.

 The top of the cake had a hole in it with a small dixie cup inside. It had a bit of water in it. We put a few small pieces of dry ice in it so the volcano would smoke.

Hurray for superheroes!!

Coral Reef Ocean theme Cake

I volunteered to make a few cakes for the school spring festival's cake walk. Probably not what they were thinking I'd be bringing, but I honestly can't pass up the opportunity to make a fun cake!!

It's very similar to the fish bowl cake from a month or so ago, but I had so much fun making all those little sea creatures. There were many things I wanted to do that I couldn't/didn't have time for with that one, so here is my take two! (Plus- my Jedi asked me in the sweetest voice to make another fish cake- and I really can't resist him)

The cake!!

Are those not the cutest crabs EVER?? I borrowed the idea from here.

Honestly though, I love the turtles the best. I made the one on top here, and then HAD to make a few more.

I know that not everyone is a fondant eating fan (myself included- I can only handle small doses), so some of the sea life is made from other edible items. I love working with all kinds of candy and goodies. The creative juices just flow when I stand in that aisle at the store!

Here is the low-down on what I used to make my coral reef come to life!!

The starburst candy and jolly ranchers were made by softening/melting the candy. I love working with melted jolly ranchers. I made a volcano cake with them for Jedi one year. (I'll have to dig out that picture)

The blue confetti sprinkles are Wilton cake sparkles. I love the shimmer you get from them. I also painted the whole cake and all the sea life with Wilton pearl dust mixed with clear vanilla extract. It gives everything a nice sheen.

The pictures don't do it justice, but I also didn't mix the blue color all the way into the fondant, so it has a slight marbled effect to look more like water.

Also, I've learned recently, that if you buy the Wilton colored fondant, mixing it with white fondant makes it softer, more usable, and less drying. Maybe the package said to do that, but I don't have the packaging anymore.

There you have it!!

I think I'm going to go plan my next scuba diving trip now...I really miss being under water!

Ice cream cone cake pops!!

The spring festival cake walk is this week and I volunteered to make some goodies. My first endeavor is something I've been wanting to try for a while. I love how realistic they look in person. They don't look fantastic in my photos, sorry about that.

I learned a lot and had a great time making them. I'll post a tutorial in the near future!!

Geography lesson

Confession: I am not a whiz with geography. I honestly get lost when we start discussing something more involved than continents, oceans, seas, and news headline countries. I have a daughter who went to Albania. Never heard of it before she went there (did, however recognize the name Yugoslavia when I learned that Albania used to be part of that country way back when).

When we start talking about European countries, I can name a dozen or more off the top of my head. Africa- six for certain. I can't even tell you which states in the good old USA touch each other for the most part. I've got CA, NV, OR, WA, AZ, UT, CO, and ID for certain. I can also tell you what's next to each other from NY down to GA and as far west from the eastern coast as WV. I'm not sure who lies where in the middle or the south.

BUT ever since I started this blog, and saw that people from all over the world are landing here from somewhere, I've been getting a great geography lesson. Check out the map at the bottom to see where some long distance readers have come from. I just started the map last month, after seeing that people from countries I've never heard of before have been by to see what's going on here. I learned today about the country of Latvia. After seeing some pictures online....I would LOVE to come visit there. It's so beautiful!!

Thanks for stopping by- my world-wide friends! I'm enjoying getting to know the rest of the world!