13866

Treasure Map Nemo 4yr - Octopus Hotdogs

July 2006

BERDECIA in GRAHAM, WA

Honorable Mention

I chose Finding Nemo/Under the see theme for my 4 year olds party.  I have an equal amount of boys and girls to invite and I had to choose a theme that was non-gender. 

INVITATIONS:  I bought 12 x 12 scrapbook paper that had water on it.  I cut 4 squares to fit into Ziploc baggies.  I printed out wallet sized photos of my daughter and used an oval shaped photo cutter to cut out a head shot of my daughter. I bought "Finding Nemo" stickers and fish confetti from the local Party store, a pack of craft pipe cleaners from the Dollar Tree.  I glued her picture in on the square, along with 2 stickers.  Next to her picture I put in squiggly lines "Our Shark bait is turning 4."  I used the idea of saying "You're o-fish-ally invited…and using Diving time for the time of the party and also calling the location the Gulf of __our last name____.  I glued the specifics onto the back of the invitation.  I then put it into the Ziploc with 2 pipe cleaners that I twisted to look like Kelp and then placed them in front of the invite so it appeared that the fish, my daughter and Nemo were all underwater.

Food:  Octopus hotdogs, Saltwater taffy, honey nut roasted peanuts in a fish shaped bowl.  Reynolds makes star shaped foil molds & I had made orange jello with.  The starfish face from Nemo was made with cake icing.  I also made pigs in a blanket.  I called these "Sea Snails,"  I put the little smokies toward one end of the biscuit.  Once cooked they look like snails.  For adults I got a 6 foot sub from Subway.  To drink I had lemonade & added Neon green food coloring & called it kelp juice.  I used blue Kool-Aid & it was ocean water. 

Decorations:  Sometimes you can't afford to buy the cute little packs of themed items so I mix & match.  I buy a few things that were Nemo like the table cover & Napkins & bought the coordinating colored items from the Dollar Store/Tree.  It is all about the decorations.  I first glued red & green streamers 3" apart all across the entrance of my front porch.  I had a sign that said "Don't the jellyfish tentacles sting you!" Outside I had 4 tables set up cover with table clothes.  I decorated them with sea shells the extra invitations, 2 small fish bowls with live betas.  Everything had a name card.  Even the fish "Nemo" and “Sharkbait".  I had a table for presents, food, a drink station with the drinks, cups, & the ice in a sand bucket with the shovel for a scooper.  All the bowls were orange and teal from the dollar store to match.  I had a net hanging on the deck privacy wall with pictures of Angelique, Nemo toys from McDonalds and a sign that said "Happy Birthday Angelique."  Cake was ordered and said, Happy Birthday Sharkbait. 

Games:  I used about 200 plastic eggs from Easter and had a "fish egg hunt", a water balloon toss and a treasure map hunt.  I divided the kids up into 3 teams making sure the groups were mixed with older/younger kids and each team’s clues were to go through 4 different locations, all at different times and all ending up at the same place.  At the end they received their party bag.  I bought paper bags used for lunches.  I used the same Nemo stickers on there but this time I used a green marker to draw seaweed on the bag put the Nemo stickers swimming through the ocean.  On the back I stamped the name of each child and Seabag.  So it said Angelique's Seabag. 

I also had rolled down the top of the bags.  They came out really cute.   Each child had their bag.  And then it was time for the piñata.  Which I also put a few "fish eggs" in.  It is very important that when there is a mixed party of children’s ages that any baby or toddlers get piñata prizes in their bag so the older kids don't get all of the goodies.  When the fish egg hunt was done a golden egg was hidden.  The winner of the golden egg got to take home the live beta fish that was on the table.  The other went to the party girl.  Beta fish are the perfect low maintenance fish to give away.  The fish bowl only needs to be about 3 cups and only needs 1/3 of the water and a can of food lasts about a year.   My daughter enjoyed it and her party hasn't been topped......

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