Fishing Party

So, I love to plan parties.  Baby Shower, Birthday, Holiday Parties….

I basically planned my own Baby Shower, not b/c my friend was not capable by any means but b/c I loved doing it and had my own ideas.  I hope to post some of my other parties soon.  But for now let me tell you about my son’s latest.

Last week was Little Man’s 3rd Birthday.  Over the summer my husband and him would go fishing on a regular basis and he really enjoyed it so we decided that the theme for his birthday party this year would be FISHING! Fishing at the lake fishing, not under the sea or ocean fish.  So I searched the web to get some ideas and picked a very simple fish design and ran with it.

See I am not one of those people who like to get a theme off of a store shelf.  Meaning, I don’t want to walk into Party City and pull a generic theme that is out dated.  Now don’t get me wrong.  By all means I wish I could go to the store and buy things that are already done and made for me, but the vision I have in my head and what is on the store shelf are not the same and I know that if I don’t go with my own ideas I will regret it.  By all means I also understand that in the next year or two I will have to go and get those packaged themes from the store based on my son’s request for an Iron Man Birthday party for example.

What a lot of people don’t realize when trying to think of a party theme is that somewhere someone has probably already done it and you hope they were cool enough to post it on the internet somewhere for you to find.  Hopefully like me 🙂  So a lot of what I do that you see I found on the web and just copied it for myself or altered to my liking.

First I started out with the invites.  My inspiration was something I saw on Martha Stewarts website.  Because it was fishing and the fact that my husband did not want the party to by at our house for the 3rd year in a row we went ahead and had it at the LAKE.  So appropriate!

Here is my version….

It says……

You are o-FISH-ally Invited!!

Liam is REELING in a party and it

is sure to be a WHOPPER!  He is

FISHING for friends to help him

celebrate his 3rd Birthday!

HOOK up Oct. 16th

DROP us a LINE at  and then ended it with

Come REEL in the fun.

They were not easy and very time-consuming.  I found pictures of the fish and the gummy worms on a hook and then printed those out individually and cut them individually along with the Word Bubbles and then glued everything on cardstock.  Once they were done I loved them and was so glad I did it.

Here are photos of the party.  We basically did everything you see.  We (my husband and I) made the signs, I made the cakes and cupcakes, along with the small fishing poles on the cupcakes.  I wrapped all the prizes, I made all the tackle box party favors.

Set the Scene

The cake I made myself and you can get details from here.

I always have a craft for the kids.  We made Stain Glass Fish out of Construction Paper, Contact Paper and Tissue Paper.  You can get detailed info here.

Now if you were to put your fish up to a light it would look like stained glass.

The kids absolutely LOVED the fishing game.  It was twice as big as a hit as I thought it would be.  We thought about getting the kids fishing poles and actually going to the lake and let them try to fish but when it came down to it we thought it would be a lot more hassle then it was worth and then thought that some of the parents might not appreciate that either if they were not to big into fishing and having their kids by the water.

We decided on a classic fishing game.  Before hand I took a permanent marker and put numbers on the bellies of the fish to match to a corresponding numbed prize.  I found a lot of different versions to this if you do not want to buy and ship the set to you.  I saw cut out of fish and putting a paper clip where the mouth is and put putting a magnet on a stick.  I saw where you could just have a box or some type of blue sheet and the kids throw the string over and wait for a “bite” and pull the line in and there is a “prize” or candy.  We got our from Lakeshore.

 

 

 

 

 

Well, that is basically it.  Little Man had a blast along with all the other kids!  The parents were impressed and I was very proud of this one.   I’m already looking forward to next years!