Lily's 3rd Birthday and Finding Nemo Party

                      
Last Year in October my baby turned 3, much to my dismay, there she goes growing up without my permission.
We wanted to throw her a big birthday party and we wanted to theme it with her favourite thing on earth at the time, Finding Nemo.
Lily is obsessed with Nemo, Dory, Marlin and Bruce. She can't get enough. We even did her room up as part of her birthday present, painting it a gorgeous shade of blue and decorating it with her favourite characters.

So a Nemo themed birthday seemed like the best idea and we ran with it.
I was on ebay and etsy for months leading up to the event, buying table cloths and ordering invites and trying to keep it within budget.
I wanted to make the perfect cake, and I had been working with fondant a little more regularly and I felt confident enough to tackle this cake that I had found a tutorial on spoonful for.

                  

It took me around 12 hours to make this cake from start to finish including making my own marshmallow fondant. The tutorial for the top tier of this cake is here.

It wasn't big enough for all of the guests so made a bottom tier, surrounded by cookie crumb sand and gumpaste seaweed.

Very easy but time consuming. I was really very proud of my attempt. 

                  

I kept the food very simple opting for healthier food where possible whilst still trying to please the conventional guests happy with sea themed cracker biscuits and blue jelly with little fish lollies inside, cupcakes with little Nemo rice paper toppers I found on eBay for around $3.

                  

                  

This watermelon shark was super fun to make, I found a youtube clip that me and my Mum watched over and over until I felt confident enough to get in there and make it without chopping my fingers off or stabbing myself in the eyes.

We had halloween candy hanging around so we swiped 2 jelly eyeballs out of it and hey presto you have Bruce. 

                    

Miss 3 was so happy and had the best time! The party went off (almost) without a hitch and I would only make a few changes. First being, don't inflate the helium balloons until the day of the party and secondly, look for that perfect back drop earlier to avoid disappointment. It would have improved my photos and really capped off how great the table looked with the shells and all the blue bits and pieces that made it look amazing.

                    

This was the first party I have ever put together like this and I now know that it is all about organisation and simplicity. You don't have to go overboard and spend alot of money, pick your theme early and start collecting things early. 

Thanks to Mum and Dad for providing the venue when I didn't have a suitable place to hold it. 

I'm glad everyone had a great time and I look forward to organizing Miss 5's Monster High themed birthday in December. 

Also a very happy Mother's day to all the mum's out here being spoilt today, have a wonderful day.

Until next time...

Stacey xx