How I Threw an Octonauts Birthday Party

My daughters recently turned five. An odd thing, while living in Nicaragua I learned that they would say my daughters were now six years old because they had completed five years and were now in their sixth year. Anyway. One twin wanted a princess party, the other twin wanted a dinosaur party, so they got neither. I decided to throw them an Octonauts party, characters from some of their favorite books that recently began airing as a cartoon on Disney Jr. Now why, you might ask, would an Octonauts party be anything to write about? Well, the cartoon is too new that there is NO licensed merchandise yet state side, and even in the UK (where the cartoon originated) party supplies such as napkins and plates will not be available until mid June of 2012. I wish to qualify my efforts with two important things, that I was trying too hard to have all edibles at the party colored by natural colorants, and that all the preparations had to be kept secret from my girls as the theme of the party was to be a surprise.

I Googled Octonauts parties and got lots of great ideas, to some degree I feel that my party was not that original. On eBay and ETSY there are folks selling Octonauts printables as "inspired by" and these items can be personalized for your child. I got invitations on eBay that looked like event tickets as well as 1 inch stickers that I used to seal the envelopes. On ETSY I got thank you cards, a HAPPY BIRTHDAY pennant banner, and Captain Barnacles hats. As there were no Octonauts items available for me to purchase to use as party favors, I had to get creative. Like many others I used Hershey bars with home-printed Octonauts labels wrapped around that I got on ETSY. Then I went to Meomi's website and printed off half-sheet sized coloring pages and color printed mazes, I home-printed 2.5 inch stickers that I also got on ETSY, and I included one of the 1 inch stickers as well. But the best part, and the only idea I can be proud of as uniquely my own, was that I included an Octonauts book in each goodie box. On eBay I found something called the Little Library, a boxed set of 5 tiny Octonauts board books, and a seller in the UK selling them so cheaply that even after shipping my net cost as about $2.20 per book. All these items were then placed in a white gable box to which I had affixed a blue bandage printed at home to make the box look like Peso's medical bag, an idea that I found here.

The tables came with orange covers. I got blue paper cups that I put the 2.5 inch stickers on, and got matching blue spoons and forks. I used images from the ETSY seller and had custom napkins and plates printed. Hallmark.com was where I went for the plates, they required the ETSY seller to provide them with permission for a third party to print her design, but it was worth the hassle. The plates were amazing, heavy duty, and super well printed. I'd highly recommend Hallmark for plates. Napkins were a little tougher as there were few places that could do a full color napkin in the first place, then there were the minimums. I ended up going with Daisy Days and was very happy with the napkins and service, though was stuck with about 80 extra napkins, it was still worth it. I got 5 ounce clear plastic tumblers from Party City and filled them with naturally colored Goldfish crackers. I used the same cups to fill with blue gelatin. This was the next snag in the natural food coloring arena. The gelatin flavor had citric acid so the natural blue food coloring turned purple, so I resorted to artificial blue food coloring for this. I also was unable to find natural colored fish candies and wound up using small sized Swedish fish. When the gelatin was set I sliced into is and placed a fish inside. This idea originally came from Martha Stewart except in a punch bowl, I altered it for single servings. The place we had the party did not allow us to hang the banner, so I set it across the table like a center piece. The beverage was Great Value (Walmart) naturally colored and naturally flavored drink mix sweetened with stevia, blueberry flavor I believe.

For the cakes, with twins, I always make sure they have their own cakes, just doesn't seem right to always have to share a birthday cake. I made two single layer 6 inch cakes using the white cake recipe from Cooks Illustrated but leaving out the almond flavoring. I used the same recipe to make 18 cupcakes. So many sites I looked at used fondant for decorations, but I felt that children were not as keen on that flavor and that I was a novice at it. So, I opted for a butter cream frosting, sugar runouts (color flows) for cupcake toppers, and modeling chocolate for cake decorations. For the icing and frosting recipes I decided to use India Tree's recipes since I was using their natural food coloring. I actually had a friend do most of the modeling while another friend and I worked on the sugar runouts. I was a novice at sugar runouts too, it showed, and I now have a new appreciation for what I see out there by way of this art. I do genuinely believe that had I just been using ready made (artificially colored) color flow mixes and such I'd have gotten better results. We had three hours before the girls got home so we had to hide our creations in the freezer. Sadly, not all the icing had dried before freezing so there were some issues when I went to place on them on the cupcakes the day of the party. But, as it was, the kids didn't notice the unprofessional toppers. For the cake decorations I chose the modeling chocolate, all naturally colored, from Chocolate Craft, OMG best decision ever! Excellent taste that any kid will devour, easy to use, and did I mention all natural colors? The girls loved their cakes and did not want to eat them because they thought they were so pretty. Baby B ended up biting the head off of the upside down frown fish on her cake, it was great. A final note of the cakes and cupcakes, the natural black food coloring I ordered online failed to arrive in time, so I did have to use artificial black coloring on the Peso cupcake toppers :(

The surprise hit of the party, however, was the Pin the Patch on Kwazi, a game that can be had on ETSY. I had the PDF printed at Vistaprint.com to get it poster sized and then home printed the patches, cut them out, and put each kid's name on one. The venue allowed us to hang the poster for the game and on site I used double sided tape to get the patches to adhere. The kids lined up and couldn't wait for their turn and most went twice just for fun, I couldn't believe it!

Well, even though I feel as though I've written enough to give someone sore eyes, I still feel like there were so many more details I could have explained, I guess that's where the comment box comes in handy. If you are reading this post because you are looking for ideas on how to throw your own Octonauts party, I hope I have helped!