Logan is extremely into sea animals and he asked for a ocean party. So I set to work, and it was a lot of work. With Steve in school and all, we are broke and I had to use my imagination and make as much as possible myself. (I actually like that part!) Everything (I think) that was bought, was bought through oriental trading. The cake is beyond words. It was painstakingly made by good friends of ours (who also made Bronson's bug cake).
For decorations I wanted it to look like we were under water so we hung crepe paper across the room and then every ten feet or so we ran fishing line under the crepe paper, higher than the crepe paper, so that it would pull it up and give it a "wave" effect. I had purchased some inflatable sea animals from oriental trading, and one had a hole, so they sent me a second set. So we ended up with twice the number of inflatables than we purchased. These were mostly hung from the ceiling so we could be swimming amongst them.
For food we had a table with a wide variety, from 'octopus' (hot dogs) to peanut butter and 'jellyfish' sandwiches. For the adults we had 'submarine' sandwiches. We had fish scales (potato chips) and more. some more creative than others.
The cake. oh wow. let me just show you!
I told you! The Morris's were so accommodating, they put on every. single. thing. that Logan asked for. Even the saw fish that was last minute! My personal favorite was the puffer fish, though I also thought the squid was especially cute. look at that cute little crab!
Alright, on to the party games. We had a table set up with brown paper bags and ocean stickers and letters and such for the kids to decorate as their goody bags. (yeah, that was a mess!) Each child got to personalize them and collect their loot for later.We had a 'cake walk' type game where the kids walked around stepping on ocean animals (that I had printed off the computer colored, cut out, laminated, and cut out again). As a prize for 'winning' each child got an ocean animals memory game (That I had also printed off the computer, cut out, laminated and cut out again).
How could you have an ocean party without doing a little fishing? I took some blue fabric (that I had on hand) and hand sewed seaweed and ocean animal silhouettes onto ( I actually have a sewing machine, that Steve got me for Christmas last year, but I am too intimidated to try it out yet!) The seaweed I left raw so it would fray, but I didn't want the ocean animals to fray so I mod podged them before cutting them out. Worked really well, much harder to sew on. Took me days and days. (Logan is now using this as a curtain in his room). The kids fished for beach ball sea animals that were purchased from oriental trading. again we had some that didn't work and were sent an entire additional set, so we still have too many floating around our house. It was nice to have so many extra though because each child got to fish for what they wanted and no one was disappointed.
It was crazy during party time, luckily we had a lot of family in town who were willing to help out, made such a difference. Logan had a great time and he told me that he wants an ocean party again next year. oh well, at least we already have all the decorations!
