Joplins Octonauts 3rd Birthday Party!

JJ is mad about Octonauts and wanted an Octonauts party for his 3rd Birthday!
First came the Octonauts - several evenings of playing with Fimo! After burning my first Kwazii and re-doing I was really pleased how they came out. ( I can never seem to get Fimo right the first time - I blame my oven... same as I do when I cook!)

Shellington, Peso, Kwazii, Dashi, Captain Barnacles, Professa Inkling and Tweak Bunny

I wanted to cake to have the Wow factor - only thing is my ideas do outdo my cooking skills! After 6 hours, tears and 3 cakes in the bin this was the result! I wasn't sure how it would taste though as it didn't rise the best so my lovely friend Rachel kindly made me a Victoria Sponge as a back up! It was delicious and we served it to the adults but the children all seemed to like the Octocake! My fimo figures helped to decorate it too.

Octonauts Cake

I spent a lot of time on 'Sub nautical' themed food and then forgot to photograph most of them!! Here are a few bits I did manage to capture ...

Captain Barnacles Marshmallows 

Homemade goldfish crackers

Blueberry bubbles with bread and veg fish

Crab cheese croissants with blueberry eyes. 

Joplin wanted to be Dashi Dog for his party. I made a belt out of blue foam and he wore brown leggings and a vest. We added Dashi style hair clips in his hair and blue wellies and he really looked the part! He wanted his green Bunny to be Shellington but I finally managed to convince him that Bunny would make a better Tweak! Mutzey (his monkey) ended up as Shellington. 

Dashi Costume

With 'Tweak' and 'Shellington' 

With his birthday present -  a Dashi Camera (ebay bargain!)

We then decorated the garden. Fish went up on the rotary drier with streamer waves, and the trampoline became the Octopod with the help of 6 rolls of Orange Streamer!! 

Octopod Trampoline 

Looking slightly worse for wear later in the party but well enjoyed!

One of the big hits of the party (and the cause of most arguments!) was the Octo-alert! I thought for ages how I would make an Octoalert and then discovered talking tins (found here). You can record your own message and play it back when you press a button on the front. I covered it in foam a la Octoalert and it was certainly a big hit!

Octo alert

Games wise we played a mixture of both Octothemed and games to music. 

I printed and laminated around 12 of every Octonauts character and hid them around the garden. This was a great start to the party and the children enjoyed seeing how many characters they could collect and take home. We also had enough left from the party to play snap with too! 

We played pin the hat on Kwazii which they enjoyed. 

I laminated pictures of the Octopod with a pack of fish stickers for each child to decorate - I wondered whether this should be a party bag toy but in the end it was nice for the children at the party wanting more quiet time. 

Over all we were so lucky with fantastic weather and the paddling pool certainly got some use! It was a great day and I think the last to leave were about 10.30pm which is pretty wild for a 3 year old's party!!!

Your comments make my day! Do let me know what you think!

Mad Hatter's Party

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Loft Conversion

This was our first change to the house and the most dramatic really as it involved a lot of structural work. The loft conversion had technically been done but it as a real botch diy job and neither safe nor signed off so we were keen to get started when we moved in. 

This was how the loft looked when we viewed the house

It was a really odd set-up with the staircase coming up right in the centre of the room. In order to do this  the previous owners had added a staircase in the master bedroom with an extra partition wall taking space from the bedroom. A very random choice! This shows the staircase looking from the landing. The shot is taken from the bedroom door with an extra door leading to the reduced size bedroom on the right and the entrence to the stairs on the left.

We decided to move the staircase to over the existing staircase. We were really lucky to have a good family friend Derek come up and stay and do the work. 

A hole was knocked in the ceiling..... then the building inspector changed his mind on what we were allowed and we then had to re-enforce the whole loft by putting in steel beams. This made the project a lot bigger than expected!

The shot here shows how close the floor was to the window in the original conversion! (the line of brick). I certainly wouldn't have been happy with the kids running around so close to a 3rd story window that yes did open!

I didn't get as many shots as I'd have liked to now of the whole process but finally it was finished and Dan painted it. We found these awesome tree wall stickers on Etsy which gives the room a really lovely feel.

I made twig 'chandeliers' to match!

The hallway gained a cupboard and the underside of the staircase was plastered. I love the wood on the staircase too. 

The room has a really peaceful feel and I'm so pleased how it has turned out. We chose to put a futon in instead of a bed and so it can be used as both a guest bedroom and many other uses. I even sometimes teach dance lessons up there.