Three By The Sea

So I've been asked to share some ideas about projects, parties, and activities.
I actually love getting ideas from other people's blogs (Ellie was my pinata inspiration and now I'm hooked for life) so I thought I'd add a new category for those who are interested.  A good place to start would be Little One's birthday party.
This year Little One really got into the whole birthday thing.  For weeks leading up to it, She asked every day if Her birthday was going to be tomorrow, and repeatedly told us how 'cited She was about it.  We got lucky that She has made some great friends here and many of them came, because She very much missed Her DC buddies and was sad they wouldn't be coming.
So this year I decided to make Little One's party all about Little One.  Which meant two things:
First, I wanted it be the one party all year that She could eat anything She wanted; no worries over Her being safe. So I was determined that ALL the food at the party be food She wasn't allergic to. 
And second, I wanted Her to be as involved with it as possible.  So She helped me pick out the favors and activity items, the plates and cups and napkins, even the color of the signs.
She helped me make the invitations.  Since we're here on the coast, we went with a beach theme. For invitations we made a "message in a bottle".
Doing this on a budget, I skipped the glass bottles and used goo-gone to remove the labels from some mini-water bottles.  Little One poured them all out into pitchers so we could drink it later.
I typed up the simple invites and cut them out.  I rolled them up and tied them with ribbon.  Little One helped me fill each bottle with sand we had collected together at the beach.  She had also worked very hard collecting tons of tiny seashells for this project, and so She helped me put some of those in too.  We added a little glitter to each one, and slid the invite in.  Little One helped stick the names on, and decorate the tray we carried them to school on.

She also chose the pinata.  She wanted a jellyfish.  This is how we started:

So to make a Jellyfish, I taped two large bowls together to get the shape, and blew up a small balloon to hold the goodies.   Little One helped me smear them all over with vaseline.
She helped me mix up the papier mache. 
We dipped strips of newspaper in the papier mache and lay them carefully on the bowls and balloon, smoothing out air bubbles, until we had covered them completely.

Little One was great at this, and thought it was super fun.  Once She got past how messy it was.  At first She asked to wash Her hands after every strip!   We let it dry and them added two more layers the same way.

Once it was dry we slid the papier mache form off the bowls and She helped wash them.  I popped the balloon and pulled it out. 
She helped me fill the balloon-form with treats.  
I punched 4 holes in the top of the jellyfish and in the balloon, and secured the balloon inside the bowl-form.
 
I also very securely tied a looooong doubled-over ribbon to the top, to hang it from later.

 We crunched up paper and stuck it around the balloon, inside the bowl.

Then we used more papier mache strips to cover the gap.  I cut a door in the balloon before covering the whole bottom with another layer, and letting it all dry.

Little One chose the tissue paper, but I had to do the rest myself. First cut the paper into long strips, then fold them in half.  Cut them into fringe just to the crease where they were folded.

Then I glued them onto the papier mache jellyfish and covered the bottom in tissue-paper circles.
I wanted an alternative to the violent bashing pinata, so I had punched a hole in the balloon's trap door and tied ribbon through it.  I used ribbon, crepe paper, and streamers for tentacles and attached them not too securely to the bottom.  The idea being that the kids take turns choosing a tentacle and pulling on it.  The tentacles will just fall off, except for the lucky kid who chooses the one tied to the trapdoor- that one releases all the treats.
  We added a little glitter all over.  And it was a jellyfish!
Hard to see in the intense wind of the party, but I think it turned out pretty well!

For favors Little One helped me put together little plastic pails with a shovel, rake, and sand-scoop inside. They took their pails on a treasure hunt and dug up little treasure boxes that my sister-in-law hid earlier.

A pinata-full is enough candy, so instead Little One and I had filled the boxes with a few markers, stickers, and foam cutouts, plus glue-dots and lots of fun stuff like rhinestones, seashells, silk flowers, and feathers, so the kids could decorate their own treasure boxes.

 

Then we did the pinata and they filled their boxes with treasures!
(Little One loved making these boxes, sorting and counting to make sure each one had the same number of everything, talking about how Her friends would "just love" each thing.)
In keeping with the sea theme and allergy-safety, for lunch we had:
"clam-burgers" and "octo-dogs" with "Mer-stard and kelp-chup". 
The burgers were just sliders. To make the octo-dogs cut the bottom half of a cooked hotdog into eight strips and splay them out to look like an octopus.  If you're really into it you can add eyes with mustard.

We had "sand-dollars" (oyster crackers), pirate's booty, and "sea cucumbers" (pickles) for snacks.
We had a veggie platter arranged to look like a beach ball, with the dip in the middle for the white part (I made an awesome allergy-safe dip using vegan sour cream).
My father-in-law made this AMAZING shrimp-boat out of a watermelon and filled it with fruit.

And for something sweet we made Little One's favorite treat- rice krispie treats.  J's family helped me cut them into rectangles, dip the bottoms in blue icing, and stick a drink umbrella in them, to look like little patches of beach.

I can eat aaalll this stuff?!

Then came the hard part- the cake.  In past years, I've relied on J's aunt who makes these incredible cakes.  Remember last year?  How could I live up to that?!  But now that we've moved, I had to try.  And I had to make it a vegan cake to be safe for Little One to eat.  I made a sandcastle cake using a bundt pan on top of a sheet cake.  The first one I made fell like a chocolatey avalanche when I flipped the pan.  Disaster.  Apparently, the trick is that vegan cakes have to bake a LOT longer- almost twice as long- to hold the shape.  The second one came out ok.  I covered it in frosting by melting the frosting a little and painting it on with a basting brush.  Then before it hardened, I covered it in graham cracker crumbs and turbinado sugar to look like sand (The graham cracker with the chocolate cake was soooo yummy).
I used candy molds and vegan chocolate chips to make little chocolate sea animals and shells, and used those to accent the sandcastle.  In the end, it's nothing like what J's aunt can make, but I think it turned out ok! And it even tasted good.

We had the party at a great little park with a small beach and boardwalk and a big shaded playground.  And bathrooms.  Perfect!

Happy as can be with Grandma!

 The weather looked very ominous when we arrived, and the wind precluded us from hanging decorations and sent paper plates flying around like frisbees a few times.  But the clouds passed and the wind kept the heat and bugs at bay, making it really a perfect day.  Little One's guests were all sweet, adorable, and fun, and Little One had a BLAST.
She loved every bit of it and I have to admit.  I did too.
Even if this was the best family picture we managed:

Well hey, you know what they say.  It's Her party, and She can monkey-face if She wants to!
What better way to irrefutably document the fact that, yep.  She's THREE.