Under The Sea Party

My little lady is now 4!!!

Her favourite film is The Little Mermaid.  Her request was for a mermaid on a cake - it's July the best weather in the history of Scotland I want to be outside!!!   I am not good at fondant modelling and my sister and me gave up on the cake business - too time consuming and not fun anymore!  So I went for the theme of under the sea with no mermaid...am I cruel??  I think I have set myself up for a lifetime of obscure cake requests now she thinks I can do anything she wants

She was pretty happy with this but I think because she was very ill she didn't notice the lack of mermaid

 Back drops really let me down I need a better place for the party table in the kitchen.

I made a tutu type decoration because of my obsession with tulle a couple of years ago when I thought I needed it in every colour - I do love a tutu!

 I had lots of fun for this party despite the weather being so good - a basket of flower shaped watermelon

 A fish full of prawn cocktail skips

 A starfish full of chocolate krispies

 Sea turtle and fish jellies

 Fish grapes

 Treasure lollypops

 Colour themed bonbons

 Pink shrimp sweets

 Clam biscuits (my sister made these I love these for this theme!)

 Sea snail marshmallows

 Meringue shells

 Trusty top hats - they appear at every event ;)

And a treasure chest full of diamond rings, gold coins and edible jewellery

Another of my drinks dispensers - acrylic this time for the kiddies party and blue juice is hard to find!  This is bubblegum flavoured Barrs.  It looks amazing this colour for an under-water themed party.  Again with the juice though Eliza is not allowed to drink.  This is for the adults and much older kiddies :)

I didn't buy any of the dishes specifically for the party - I found the fish dishes and star dishes in the Next sale at some point over the last years and I was given the treasure chest box for my birthday year's ago.  I don't like to buy specific props for a party I just like to shop my house and my stash of weird items I have collected over the years.  It is so good when it fits a theme...or did those fish dishes start off my theme?...

And I borrowed these tiny buckets from my mum got Grant to make me some flags and filled them with sand :)

 My finger puppet obsession came to light too - and at my birthday I got a new sewing machine!  Woohoo!!!!  (Right after the Nerf Party where I was sewing ammo bags into the little hours before the party - Grant didn't think to give me the machine a week early even though he had it in the house :o  haha)

 So I got to practice with my sewing machine - much faster than hand sewing but I need to get neater!

Everyone got to take home a party bag with their three finger puppets, a lolly, a bag of sweets, a bit of chalk, some treasure, a Wham, a rubber and a loom band - I learned the inverted fishtail so I practiced lots in the nights leading up to the party 
























Not sure what next year's theme will be especially as after my poor ill Eliza on her birthday went to bed Grant proposed!  We are getting married on the 1st August next year just two weeks after Eliza's birthday!  I will have a very busy July - it is also Grant's birthday the day after Eliza so lots of celebrating!!  I will still have a party for Eliza though - I should start sewing tutus and finger puppets now though but I won't I will wait until July and sit up all night stressing about how much stuff needs done - that's how I roll :D

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Nerf Party

Again I have been useless with the blog - change over to a new laptop so no photos and slow internet - it is soooo difficult to pin with a slow computer!!

I have been really busy though - painting, up-cycling, rearranging my new birthday things and bargain finds and two significant birthdays!

The first was Finlay's 10th Birthday Nerf party.  I told him he could invite 5 boys which he quickly convinced me had to be 6 then we decided his neighbours and cousins would need to come so it turned into two parties so the older ones could shoot themselves senseless at party one and then keep it tame with the younger ones in the afternoon.  There was a lot of chat at the school about who was coming to the party and who wasn't.  Finlay plays with everyone so it was a difficult decision for him but apparently there were fake invites going about - I had two parents messaging they had a handwritten invite on the morning of the party would it be ok for their child to come?!  Haha.  I would have gladly let them if I had extra party props but I was already flat out sewing sticking and cutting the night before trying to get organised for the 16 I already had coming so I had to let them down.  Felt so bad - whole class parties are so much fairer!

 Here are the official invites - no idea what the hand-written invites looked like! (also no idea why this photo is upside down and I can't seem to fix it...) These were made from toilet rolls wrapped in orange tissue paper and black tape.

 A target I made out of an old box and ping pong balls.


                                                                                                            Me and Finlay are addicted to making rainbow loom bracelets so I made one for everyone coming to the party

I made little ammo bags for each of them

Webbing and D rings

 

 Bullets inside

 Party bags - Nerf badge, Nerf jolt gun, orange sweets, rainbow loom, cupcake all in a Nerf orange party box

 And a homemade dog tag - Finlay's dad made these at his work they are fab!  I found the bead necklace sold by the metre  in Nickel and Dime and bought the little connectors off ebay.  So there was no way I could add extra people onto the guest list!  They wouldn't have personalised dog tags :(

Nerf bullet gingerbread biscuits,..yes ok they look disgusting!

Gingerbread targets to be...

The Nerf cake

 Finlay banner made out of foam

 All the party boxes ready for the guests to arrive with their gun, dog tags, ammo belts and bracelet ready to use when they arrived.

 The garden all set up for the assault course

 Shoot the cans off the deck

 Shoot the target

 More cans to shoot

 Crawl under the net

 Jump the hurdles

 Camo den

 Shoot the ping pong balls off the golf tees - someone must have got to this before my photo!

 Under the string

 Shoot the cans

 Getting camouflaged

 Locked and loaded ... I didn't think this through they all shot me straight after the photo!

 The desserts table

 Orange and black

 Gingerbread target biscuit

 The gingerbread biscuits looking even worse with icing!

 Cake

 Perfect colour for a Nerf party - orange aero balls

 Target biscuits - saw these easels years ago and knew they would come in handy one day!

 Sweets

 Fruit salads

 Orange skittles - you don't get many orange in a bag of skittles!  I now have a million other colours to get through!

 Irn bru - a very Scottish Nerf party!

 Orange jellies

 My nephew ready to party

 Even the footwear was Nerf! Uncle Grant's Nerfs

 And Jacob's

My Grant has his on too but no close up

 Hands up!

 Eliza not very well but a wee bit of camouflage and finally getting to eat the orange skittles and she was happy

 The kids got fed up but not the adults!

 Looking good Aunty Gillian!

 Hahahahahaha

 Finlay the sniper

 More jockey than soldier :)

Nerf station

We had a great time the weather wasn't the best but it added to the muddy army feel of the party.  The food was not as much effort as I usually go to - pizzas, hot dogs, sausages and sausage rolls - it was much better not to have so much stress.  Still too much hand sewing for my liking - but I got a new sewing machine for my birthday the week after this so next year's parties will be a blast!!!  Haha I swore Finlay was not getting another party after last year's superhero monstrosity party but 10!!!  That's a big birthday!  But that's it this time.  No more parties....until his 18th of course!  Might repeat the Nerf one actually after seeing the adults at this one! ;)