Pirate Party Food, "Shiver Me Timbers I'm Hungry!"

Mates,

Here is a quick look at some of the food I put out for this party.  With many school mates running a muck I had plenty of pizza and other mini pirate friendlies for them to feast on.  I also had a platter of fancy sandwiches for the parent folk...

 The veggie planks were a big hit...I should serve this more often at home, maybe my kids would eat more veggies without the typical family stress at dinnertime. 

 I love Dixie cups...and not for drinking out of.  They are the perfect snack holder at parties for little hands.  Parents scoop in the fish into the cups for the kids to eat on the go.  Love it!

So I will make these available to you for printing somehow...  Please stay posted on that given Scribd is no longer an option.

Happy day everyone, hope you are spending it with family.

xox
Dish

Time to return to shore. Pirate's AHOY!

My friends,

 

After some time away I have so much to share with you and how better to steer the boat ashore than with this pirate themed party for my eldest held this past fall.  Being completely uprooted, currently in temporary housing whilst we renovate our casa this party invite needed to wow without any requirement of special spice.

 

Yep, this wee invite was created by staring at the non existent crafting supplies around me and making it work with nothing but mega creativity.  Granted obviously these bad boys were hand delivered but they still had the desired effect I was looking for...one wee man excited to bring along some mates for adventure.

 

 

The how to was simple, some flags glue gunned to tooth picks and then to the legal sized invite folded into a paper boat.  Click here for a how to fold your own boat.

Crazy cute right?!

Check back soon for more to this story...

xox
Dish

PS When distributing you may want to verbally clarify it is a party invitation...long story, just take my word for it. ;o)

The Sweet Shoppe Birthday Party Water Bottle Label Free Printable

So to continue with the Sweet Shoppe theme I love love the addition of a matching water bottle label.  People under estimate how easy it is to do these yourself and it really adds to being able to pull the theme of a party together. 

For your Sweet Shoppe party I created a generic "Happy Birthday" water bottle label for you which you can download and print here.  Print them up in colour, buy your water bottles, rip off the original labels and using two sided tape on one end of the label pull tight and attach yours.  I kid you not it will take you 5 minutes to do 24 bottles. 

Note:  Do yourself a favour and use a board cutter to trim these labels quickly.

Looking forward to continuing this theme with you all Monday.

Wishing you a restful day tomorrow.

xox
Dish

Sweet Shoppe Birthday Party Candy Jar Labels Free Printable

Well you certainly can't have a Sweet Shoppe birthday party without jars of candy everywhere.  Really...what would be the fun in that?!

You can download the sheet of printable labels here (I included some blank labels if you prefer to write your own).  Again I suggest you use some sharp small scissors as these are a little finicky when cutting out.

Okay all...now I need to get back and do some more work for my day job.

Hugs and tune in tomorrow for another piece of this party.

xox
Dish

Sweet Shoppe Birthday Party Sign Free Printable

I thought it time for another birthday theme and I just adore the Sweet Shoppe Party!  To start off the intro into this girly affair I thought we should begin at the door.....some signage.  What little girl wouldn't get excited to see this to greet guests?!

You can download the "Sweet"" and "Shoppe" here for your own use.  To create the signs you need to do the following:

1. Print in colour and cut out (they are a little tricky so grab some small scissors)
2. Buy some dowels from Home Depot (much much cheaper than a craft store)
3. Hole punch at the top and bottom of the signs and feed the dowels through.
4. Bottom with a knot of numerous strands of pretty ribbon.

Easy right?!  I really hope you enjoy this theme as it was particularly a lot of work for me to create so please make your little girl smile from me.

Come back tomorrow for another piece of the Sweet Shoppe.

xox

Dish

Nautical/Ocean/Under The Sea Birthday Party Games

Well here we are at the end of the Under The Sea birthday party and now you get to see some of the kids having fun which was the real theme of the party.

Remember the ribbon sticks I made?  Huge hit!  I made a CD with some ocean/sea/sailor music and the kids danced away.  Some of the mixed adult/kid titles were Roll Up The Map by The Never Land Pirate Band, Yellow Submarine by The Beatles, Excursion Around The Bay by Great Big Sea, Under The Sea by Samuel E. Wright, Fresh Off The Boat by Nelly Furtado and Rock The Boat by Party Animal.  Have fun with this and pump it!  We certainly did in our Under The Sea Kids Club!!

Note: I wish I had had more songs from The Never Land Pirate Band...all the kids got into the Roll Up The Map, so cute.

The next 20 minute to make craft game had the kids fully engaged (all ages) for more than half an hour which is incredible at this age.  Two pieces of bristol board taped together and then edges rounded to make a terrible but effective looking lake.  Cricut used (thanks ma) to make many fish of various sizes, paperclips put on (thanks papa) and then put into the lake. Each kid was given a fishing pole from the Dollar Store (there is a magnet in the lure) and alas we were fishing.

The official fishing rod "untangler". 

So that's it folks for this project.  Hope you enjoyed taking a swim with us over the past week.

On to the bunny hop? 

xox

Dish

DIY Ocean/Nautical/Under The Sea Party Cupcake Toppers

I just love how the cupcakes turned out for the party.  They were a hit and the bakery loved the toppers too which is saying a lot in my mind since I am certainly not a professional!! 

I really struggled and pondered how I was going to make the shark fins as paper I thought would just end up absorbing the oils from the icing and eventually look terrible.  I considered the following alternatives: foam, cookies, modelling chocolate, laminated paper etc etc and it was only when walking around the baking supply store that I came up with the answer.

Sugar Sheets by Wilton!!  What the heck are those?!  Anyway I'd never heard of them but I thought I would give them a try as it seemed to be the perfect answer to my problem and they worked fantastically.  See how I made them below. Oh...they tasted good too.

Then the life preservers which I also brainstormed as to how I would create.  I tried a few things (jellies, modelling chocolate etc) but the painting of the life savers certainly was the easiest, least time consuming and least likely for me to mess up.  Big hit. 

Give it a whirl folks. 

xox
Dish

Ocean/Nautical/Under The Sea Party Fish Net Cake Topper

So before I go into how I made this Fish Net cake topper take a long hard look at the photo above and ask yourself does it look good enough for your party?  Looks great right?!

Would you believe me if I told you it took me 30 minutes to make? It probably would have taken less if I knew how to crochet before hand and I didn't start it at 1am the night before the party.

My message....anything goes with this one, I'm willing to bet the messier the better/more authentic it will look.  Daunted by just looking at it?  Me too and I made it so I guarantee you can too. 

You need the below (okay you also need a needle and thread and 2 skewers).

The pattern is made up of four crocheted ropes.  One very long one (red arrow) and three shorter ones (blue, green and pink arrows) when tacked on make the net complete. 

This last picture just goes to show you at 1:30am you don't care what colour the thread is to tack this thing together (hence the blue) and it still looked awesome.

Make it your own, you can do it I promise.

xox
Dish

Ocean/Nautical/Under The Sea Birthday Party Banners with Printables

Here are the two banners I did for the Under The Sea party, both very different from the traditional alternatives.  The first was a birthday banner made of fish caught in a net along with a couple of crustaceans.  You could cut everything by hand but I used the Cricut for the fish and design software for the letters.  You get the idea.

The second banner I always do for a 1st birthday and it is classically an instant hit.  The month banner from birth to 1 year this party was fish bowls, plants (both cut with the Cricut) and photos.

The monthly tags (2inch) I created again with a design software and you can download them here for your own use. 

Do you like the banners? You can do them too.

Tomorrow is the cake!

Night all.

xox
Dish

Fish Net and Crustaceans from The Amazing Party Store

Ocean Nautical/Under the Sea Party Room Decor

The room didn't turn out the way that I had in my head for several reasons but ultimately I was able to improvise and get it close enough to what I was looking for.  Wall backdrops in my opinion are the quickest way to truly transform a room however it takes a lot to keep them on the walls.  Thankfully this house is scheduled for a major reno this summer so my hubby didn't cringe as much as I thought he might with all the tape I was using to hold these suckers up.  I did however get the lecture about how we would not be "doing this" in the new house.... ;o)

 Here is a shot of the ceiling decoration.  The plan was to actually have hundreds of individual streamers hanging down but I couldn't get the tape to stick to the ceiling so I came up with the above using thumb tacks.  Boy am I ever glad I was wise enough to keep their length out of the reach of the children; something you may want to also consider.

The tissue flowers (DIY, posted here on the blog) added to the party well along with the occasional hanging puff fish.

 Much of the food and table decor was done in fish bowls which people seemed to like.  I personally loved the small ocean Dixie cups beside the fish crackers; perfect for little hands. 

 Finally to finish off this post we have the Ocean Nautical/Under the Sea water bottle labels.  These like so many of the things I do are very very easy but make a huge impact....don't you love the "she thinks of EVERYTHING!" comments you hear floating around.  Warms my heart.



  

You can download a free generic ocean/sea printable set of water bottle labels here

Tomorrow is the Ocean/Under The Sea birthday banners. 

Check it out.

xox

Dish

Sourcing:

Ocean Wall Backdrops:  Buycostumes.com and The Amazing Party Store

Fish Bowls:  Michaels

Printable Ocean/Nautical/Under The Sea 1st Birthday Invite

Where does one start with walking through this Under The Sea/Nautical party?  At the printable invite I suppose and instead of showing the one I created for my son I thought you would prefer to see the one I created for all of you. 
If anyone would like to have a general age invite created please drop me a comment and I will make one...but unless there is a need I'll work on making other things. 

You can download the printable sheet with crop marks here.

All the kids were given sailor hats to wear with their nautical blues, some wore them, some didn't but none were cuter than this little fella.  xo

So here is the schedule for the week:
Tuesday:  Room & Decor
Wednesday:  Birthday Banners (totally the hit of the party)
Thursday:  Cake (so easy)
Friday:  Cupcake toppers (wait until you check these out!)
Saturday:  Party games

I hope this works for you.

Enjoy.

xox
Dish

Sailor Hats:  The Amazing Party Store

The Under The Sea Nautical 1st Birthday Party: General Overview

Well it was a wonderful day but I'd be lying through my teeth if I tried to pretend I wasn't exhausted...falling asleep in front of the computer screen exhausted.  As promised however here is a small teaser of today's festivities.   More to follow....

My baby brother is a star and goes to any length for his nephews.  I abuse him like any big sister should but I love him and he always comes through...what a super sport.  You rock bro...thank you (you too Jill).

This gentleman was welcoming his fellow sailors and ushering them through to the galley for the festivities.  Welcome aboard all!

A brief peak at the under the sea party room.

So off to bed for a deep slumber.  Thank goodness tomorrow is Sunday (remember no blog post).

This week look forward to free printables and instructions as to how you can create much of this party for yourself.

xox
Dish

Printable Ocean/Under The Sea Party Thank You Goodie Tags

Quick post today as I am very busy trying to get ready for Saturday!

I wanted to show you the thank you tags we did for this party, I think they turned out well.  If you are interested in a  Printable General Thank you Ocean/Sea Tags please go to the follow link:  click here


See you tomorrow night folks...I'll be up late working away!

Sleep well!
xox
Dish

Resurrection of the Ribbon Stick....Get in Shape Girl!!

Working hard to get ready for my second sons first birthday and wanted to create these ribbon sticks for the kids to dance with.  Sure there may be a complicated way to make them but I assure you I simply do not have the time but I still think they turned out fantastically.

You need the below and do yourself the favour of buying the wooden dowels at Home Depot and not at a craft store, it will save you several dollars.

1.  Cut the dowels into one foot sticks.  You can use sand paper to soften the edges but as I didn't have any I took them outside and filed them on the sidewalk (make due with what you've got is my motto). 
2.  Use a wrench to clamp one end of the stick enough to make a serious indent on both sides (this is so that the ribbon won't slide off the end of the stick). 
3.  Cut the ribbon (I made each 6 feet) and pull out the wire if your ribbon has one.
4.  Tie the ribbon tightly around the indent on the stick.

Easy right?!  Go ahead...you know you want to...yes you can play with it for a bit.

xox
Dish

Tissue Flowers: Do It Yourself

I am in full party mode for my baby's first birthday rounding this week.  The theme is a nautical one with parts of the house decorated for underwater fun.  With the streamers of kelp, fish etc etc I wanted to add some tissue flowers to hang around. 

You may have seen these kits in party stores and I am always amazed at the mark ups on items like this.  Skip to the dollar store instead and buy yourself the below.
 

Experiment with the number of sheets of tissue you need to create the look you want.  Remember be gentle when pulling apart the layers.  Although you can easily hide rips if they occur you certainly don't want too many of them.

Simple simple.

xox
Dish

Kids Construction Birthday Party Part 3

I had the typical party fare at this gathering for kids.  Pizza, munchies, sandwiches, cake etc etc.  I didn't realise until later that I hadn't taken any pictures of the food in between the running around and making sure that everyone was happy.  My girlfriend did happen to get a few shots of the cookies I made, although I half finished them as they were baked but but not iced.

What we did instead, and something you may find helpful in a cookie crunch, is we painted them with Luster Dust and vanilla.  Luster Dust if you have never used it before is a sparkly powder that you add to any liquid with an alcohol like base i.e. various extracts, hard alcohols etc. and then paint onto your surface.  The alcohol base sets up for quick evaporation and thus drying of whatever you painted which is perfect when you are creating delicate sugar flowers etc.  You can see below the outcome, which I thought looked great for something I really didn't have time for.  My only complaint was I didn't like my favourite sugar cookie recipe altered by all the vanilla we painted on.  Oh well and thanks JR for your help with these on that crazy day!!

My local bake shop named Bale Sale currently has a construction themed window and in this shot you can see what my cookies should have looked like if I had had better time management skills.
Check out those dump truck cookies!  Fabulous.

I also LOVE this cake from Bake Sale and as it kicks the butt of the cake I made for the party I am too embarrassed to even post it.  Nice.

Finally, to close the coverage of the construction party here is the back of my son's birthday ride...how could I possibly resist?!

xox
Dish