A friend of mine won a service I offered at our church womens group service auction. I offered up hosting a party- I plan and host it, they *just* had to pay for the goods involved (not my time and energy :) She chose for the theme Under the sea! Seems a bit popular on this blog as of late. I honestly wasn't at all an influence on her choice, surprising?? I was a bit disappointed at first as I wanted to expand my horizons, but 20 seconds later I was really excited to be doing ocean again. I've mentioned this before, and I'll say it again. I LOVE FONDANT!! Could these be any cuter?? The crabs and turtles you've seen before, but I added a friendly whale. Including a birthday whale for the birthday girl. My original idea was to have the lanterns look like bubbles around the room, but things got a big crazy and we ended up hanging them across the room in a line. The party was outside for the most part, so I didn't want to do much on the inside decorations. The table is, however missing the little umbrellas I bought for it. I still have no idea where they disappeared to. Dessert & Favor table I scoured the internet for ideas for this party, and of course it's no surprise that there are A TON of great and creative ideas!! The birthday banner was made with my Silhoutte- my favorite paper craft tool!! How cute is a goldfish bar?? I got lots of ideas from this post, and the goldfish bar was one of them. I wanted to jazz up the obvious choice of using Swedish fish. :) "Sushi" We've been making these for years. I believe I first saw the idea at family fun magazine. However, when I just did a google image search for "fruit roll up sushi", I was blown away with how far it's come since I originally saw the idea. And you think *I* go overboard?? Just go do the search and you'll think I'm a simpleton. I love candy coating marshmallows. SO EASY and so fun. I added blue sprinkles to them. The pixie sticks can be purchased individually at Party City. Lots of candy can- as well as at grocery store candy bins. I love to shop for candy in bulk bins when I'm trying to buy specific colors. Dum Dum lollipops wrapped in purple tissue paper. I "planted" them in a bed of uncooked rice. They stood up perfectly. If I had the time, I would have colored the rice blue. This oh so cute fish cake pop stand was copied inspired by This idea. I used glitter cardstock in aqua colors. I was covered in glitter for a few days after making it. I'm such a sparkly person :) Fish cake pops!! I loved the idea here. I made a few changes. My favorite part was the heart candy confetti used for the mouth. These cakepops were almost scratched from my party plans after a 105 degree heat index day which included 85% + humidity. Not fun conditions for cake pop making. Even my basement wasn't a safe haven for making them. I used starburst for the fins. It was STICKY! Incidently, at the party, the starburst had dried up, and the fish weren't sweating any longer. Starfish chocolate covered Oreos. I used Wilton dark chocolate candy coating. The stars are made from star burst candy. I went through the trouble of making a cute dot pattern on the starfish, but then with the humidity, they kind of stuck inside the plastic. If you decide to make these and will be in any kind of heat, I'd skip those kind of details. (I'm sure you're probably thinking you'd skip most of the details that I put into things by now) The favor part of the table had bubbles Go fish cards which I bought a the Dollar store in a variety three pack (so they ended up only being about $.33 each) Shovels which came with the buckets Fishes And MY FAVORITE PART!! Ocean in a bottle. I used Target's Market Pantry brand flavored water bottles because I liked the size and shape. They are filled with two orange fishes-like the ones on the table cloth in the previous picture water with blue food coloring, and baby oil. I hot glued the lids on The kids played a relay game with fins. Played on a inflatable waterslide and had a bubble machine. Happy Birthday my little fish friend.