Under the Sea

 A few weeks ago my soon to be 8 year old niece called me as said...

"Auntie Lisa, can you do my birthday party?"

  

Of course there was no way I was saying no and besides, why would I say no? 

So....she proceeded to tell me her theme would be Seashells. I became very excited as I knew I had lots of Under the Sea decor that would be perfect. 

The location picked was also exciting. 

A beautiful gazebo. 

My vision quickly came and I knew this was going to be so cool.  Everyone was going to feel like they were really Under the Sea! When I went to decorate, I quickly realized that in ND even a tiny bit of wind it too much wind and I was not going to be able to enclose the gazebo in fabric as I had planned.  

Even laying the blue gossamer fabric on top of the fishing line that had been strung was not happening. 

 How frustrating.  

But I couldn't sulk for long...a party was about to happen and therefore I came up with Plan B.  

I tied as much of the blue gossamer to the gazebo as I could and starting hanging the streamers, bubbles and fish everywhere (well, with the help of my Mom and Destiny).    

It came together well, just not the vision I had. 

Another plan that I had was to have ocean sounds playing on a cd.  

I bought the music online, downloaded to my computer (desktop) only to find out that I cannot burn a disk on my computer. 

 And of course I don't find this out till the afternoon of the party! 

 But I wasn't giving up that easily.  

I arranged for Destiny to bring her computer and she could download it, play it and all would be well.

 Nope, not to be.  

She had problems with her computer and it just wasn't going to happen.  

So, you go with flow I guess. 

 No music. 

But we did have a party (wind and all)!! :)

 

 

We went on a Treasure Hunt. 

This was the list of things to find.  

I thought since some of the girls may not be able to read as well as others that I would add a picture of the item they needed to find such as  

  a blue anchor, real sand, a compass and seaweed.

 One of the jelly fish

 Can you spot the 2nd jelly fish?? 

 Sierra carefully checking her list.......

 And the food... 

Chocolate Chip Madeleines, Sweet Clams, Goldfish Crackers, PB & Jelly fish sandwiches, sea water and of course Salt Water Taffy.

 

 

 

Some of the treats from the Favor Bags.  

 

 Each guest received a Sea Shell necklace and a bag of seashells  also.

And here is the Queen of the Sea Birthday Girl with her big smile! :)

 

Table decor for Fundraiser

 We recently had the privilege of being asked to help with some decorating for a fundraiser for God's Child Project.  

This great event was organized by a young lady who is working her way through college and running her business of baking yummy goodies and still had time to put on this huge event to raise money for a very good cause.  

She wanted something simple, 

just so the tables had something on them. 

  

I gave her a couple of options:

   She choose the red/brown look. 

Since we wanted to use what I had so there was very little cost involved we ended up using other colors with browns also.   

The package of paper I had 

(which is what I used inside my vases) 

had a fun variety of colors but all the same retro look.  

We chose to use reds, blues, and oranges and yellows with the brown. 

This is such a simple and inexpensive way to decorate a table. 

Tablecloths were just plastic.  

{$36 for 20 tables}.

Runners were crepe paper flats cut in half.  {about $15}.

Vases  

{had on hand}

Tissue flowers in vases  

I made 4 flowers per pack of tissue that costs 99 cents per pack! 

So that's what....{25 cents per flower}!!!   I know....get out of here, right!

Small square vases  

{had on hand}

Marbles  

{had on hand}

Sticks  

{from my tree in the front yard}. :)

Cake pops  

{made by the organizer of this event}.  They were the dessert and I will say that I did stay fair and only eat 1 but it was SO very tempting to eat more!!!  

 

 These flowers were cut 8" by 16" with 5 layers to them. 

 All the Hall

 We live in a very small community and the attendance was low, but this young girl was able to raise over $11,000 in one night!!   

So exciting!!

Up next.......A Wedding we did a little bit of decorating for.

Street Fair adventure!

We showed up at the  

Street Fair 

at our local town. 

 

It was very windy so I didn't set all the decor items out that I normally would have.  

{notice the ugly grey tape holding the banner onto the fabric...

I'm not a fan, but the wind was absolutely crazy and a girl has to do what a girl has to do!}

We did sell sodas and sugar cookies though. 

 

We received alot of compliments on the cookies which was very nice to hear. 

I asked Amy to make cookies to fit in with the decor of  

Dill & Poppy 

and she did a great job making poppies and polka dot cookies. 

We sold 30 cookies that night!! 

 happy 

happy 

Amy would like to get out of the box a bit and do some other shapes and colors, etc.  

I guess I'll have to see what she will come up with that is different, but still works with the booth. :) 

She has been buying up cookie cutters all around town, 

so if anyone would like to order a specific cookie, 

she might already have it. 

I must share just a bit about the Dill & Poppy banner you see in the first picture.  

It is made out of chalkboard scrapbook paper!!  

AND...I made it one very quickly before I went to work that morning!  {it is sewed together}

{Not sure why I always have to be so last minute!!}

Anyway, I loved working with this paper.  

It really does work just like a real chalkboard and the pack comes with a variety of colors. 

Well we didn't have the 

much anticipated 

Puppy Party 

for Maci Rae 

(parents decided to have a big party with friends when she is a bit older, AND Maci decided she wanted to go bowling anyway) 

however, 

Amy did bake up some 

sweet puppy cookies.

 :)   

Here are the dog houses and bones Maci took to preschool.

 

And we got a few ready in a dog dish for the trip to the bowling alley. 

 

A snack is always needed for hungry little ones. :) 

 
I also put together little favor bags which included: 

A puppy (of course!), puppy blanket, vitamins, puppy food, and a puppy toy. 

So...even if there is not a big noisy party, 

you can still add a few fun things to make the day special. 

 Just do whatever it is that will make a bit of a difference. :)

 Mad Scientist Party

The party was a surprise for a Science Teacher 

who was turning 70. 

This is one party we were really excited about, 

but ended up kind of stressed about in the end.  

There are just SO many ideas for a Scientist party that it got a bit overwhelming for us and we wanted to do more and more.  :) 

 

So here is what we did do:

I had a poster made of the Birthday guest and attached it to a large piece of foam board I had painted black. 

This made a great focal point in the room which was a school library. 

It says "Goodrich's Einstein = 70"

  

 

One of the beakers.  

I had wanted it to look a bit like the beaker was overflowing or the smoke coming out of it..guess you could get somewhat of that idea with the way it turned out. {i think}

 

 Part of the food table here is showing the Toxic Waste Punch which was Mountain Dew, Fresca, Pineapple Juice and Lime Sherbert.  Severed fingers which were cute little butter cookies shaped liked a finger and dipped in raspberry jam so they would be "bloody".  

Also showing is the dish of test tube favors.

 

The test tube favors were filled with Pop Rocks and I attached a tag saying "open with caution" "Mr. Anderson's 70th Birthday Experiment".

The Periodic Table of Elements in all it's sweetness!  

These cookies were made and decorated by Amy. 

Each cookie is about 2" x 2". 

 
  The Skeleton Veggie tray did not turn out as well as I would have liked it too.  The tray was too small, the mushrooms were gross (but that's mushrooms for you) and there were not really that many veggies ON the tray. There was a bowl of "spare body parts"  on the table also.  The head is made of cabbage that was carved out to fit a bowl inside which was filled with dip.

The "Agar".  This was apricot and pineapple jello with lime jello dotted on top. 

Scenes from "the Lab"....

The specimen jars just waiting for the snakes, flies, grasshoppers, hands, eyeballs, and other icky things.

One of the games that my Sister-in-Law put together.  This one on the Periodic Table of Elements.

The smaller game showing was papers that had different scientific things printed on them and you put them on the backs of the guests and try to find out "who" or "what" you are.  Another game she did was trying to guess the item in a picture that was an extreme close up.  

 I must share the story of this Beaker.  I had so carefully cut out and painted this Beaker and was actually quite proud of it.  

Amy took one look at it and said it looking NOTHING like a Beaker.  

Ok, so after picking myself up I restyled my not so good Beaker into the 2nd picture and I will say, it does look better.  

Sometimes I guess I just don't have a clue what I am doing, so thank goodness for people that do!!

 So, there you have it....a taste of our Mad Scientist Party.  If you even considered this theme I would encourage you to do it!  It is alot of fun.  

I found alot of ideas online which were very helpful.