Octonauts Party

I'd like to use the excuse that its taken a month to recover from the birthday parties - but that's not strictly true.....Although there is no denying a full on kiddie party is hard work!  It was  all worth it, to see my eldest squeal with delight to have her friends at HER party.  It was Octonauts themed as requested, most ideas stolen used from Pinterest.  
I hung blue streamers from the archway to create an entrance way into the underwater world.  As kids arrived they went straight to a craft activity, making either jelly fish (from paper bowls, streamers & googly eyes) or fish from paper plates. I would recommend having an activity to hand as people always arrive in dribs and drabs.  

They then played 'Pin the patch on Kwazii', unfortunately we forgot to take a picture of this. I order the poster from Etsy and Mr Maker printed off a super sized version at work.  
Speaking of Mr Maker, his mornings preparation for the party was the map for the treasure hunt. And what a creation that was! (one would hope so as it took him 1 1/2 hrs to draw, yup, really).  The treasure hunt was a great success, and took longer than anticipated which was a bonus.  He put the kids in teams for 2 or 3 and gave them an empty party bag each.  The hunt started when each team was given a picture clue. At this location (e.g. inside washing machine, BBQ etc) they found their beautiful map which was marked with red X's - the treasure bags.  The treasure bags were marked with a letter and contained 'goodies' which they all took, one of from each location.   After visiting every treasure bag they unscrambled the letters to make the word, and win the treasure hunt!
Anyway, enough games onto the food....

The table

Menu

Cheese straws

fish sandwiches

Goldfish (obs!)

carrots & toms + dip

hot dog squid

strawberries

clam & pearl biscuits/cookies

Captain Barnacles cake

fish sandwiches on seaweed

Octopus dip

squid

Pearl clams

My personal favourite are the clams, aren't they cute?!! I bought the biscuits (cookies) and made some butter icing which I coloured pink.  The pearl is a yoghurt covered raisin and the eyes are dots of black icing. 

Captain Barnacles cake

And here is the man bear himself.  Phew, glad the parties are all over for another year! Happy 5th year to a gorgeous girl xxx