Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Octonauts! Birthday Party

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Octonauts!

How To Create Your Own Octonauts  
Themed Party

It's been a while since I've posted anything on the blog, so this is a bit of a flashback.  Well worth it, nonetheless!  We did an Octonauts theme for my son's 4th birthday celebration.  For those of you who don't yet know the Octonauts, they are creature guardians of the seas- a fairly new addition to the Disney channel & Disney Junior channel.

In researching party ideas, I found quite the lack of anything Octonauts available in the U.S. and found many other mommies voicing the same disappointment online.  I took this as a challenge to get creative!
 

I was able to find a few choices on Etsy for party invitations, but nothing was quite what I had in mind.  So I used a template for a party invitation in Word, added my info, & copied and pasted an Octonauts image I found online into the pre-made template.  Printed, stamped and mailed.  I really do enjoy the old snail mail method for party invitations.  Besides, who doesn't feel extra special to receive a fun party invitation in the mail?


Also on Etsy, I was able to connect with Julie at CakesAndKids who does amazing & adorable work with fondant!  I approached her about doing some "Octonauts Inspired" cupcake toppers & boy, did she deliver!  I would encourage you to take a peek at her shop on Esty CakesAndKids, as she really does have something for any type of party one could imagine, and she was lovely to work with.





For more Cupcake toppers, I found some more Octonauts images online, copied & pasted into a word document, printed them out on cardstock, cut them out & taped them to striped paper straws.  The straws were also ordered from an Esty shop and were fairly inexpensive.

     
    
    

The food was a special creative challenge and treat!  
I did quite a bit of surfing online and found some great inspiration for underwater themed parties. 

 
First, I made some heart-stealing & adorable Oyster Cookies.  I used store-bought shortbread cookies, pink frosting inside, yogurt raisins for the "pearl", and ready-made eyes in the cake decorating aisle.






Also, I made a trio of bell pepper octopus on plates of dip, with black olives for eyes. Another snack was a stalk of celery, dipped in peanut butter to "fish" for goldfish crackers on a plate.



The most substantial snack we offered was "mini-sub" sandwiches.  To make these I made simple sandwiches (with deli meat and sliced cheese) on hot dog buns, bendy straws for the "periscope", and cheese cubes on toothpicks inserted along the sides to look like portholes.


Since Octonauts party decorations are non-existent, I printed some coloring pages that I found online and strung them together with ribbon to make a banner.  Also, we hung some green paper streamers to look a little like kelp.




Below are the coloring pages I used:
 Black and white picture of Peso
 Black and white picture of Kwazii
Black and white picture of Dashi 
Black and white picture of Shellington
Black and white picture of Inkling
Black and white picture of Barnacles
Black and white picture of TweakBlack and white picture of Tunip