Junior J's 3rd: Under the sea party decor

Hello!  I'm down with a cold with a fuzzy head, so I'm just going to be babbling about the crafty bits of Junior J's birthday party for the rest of the week.  We just had a really tiny gathering this time, since we preferred to take things easy and chat with people.  Having a bigger gathering usually meant we were fluttering crazily around trying to settle everyone.  (I really wish we could celebrate his birthday with all our friends, so sorry if we didn't include you this round!)  I discussed with the little boy about the theme of his party and he said he wanted a jungle theme, so I already had in mind things like vines and monkeys and toucans... We had it more or less sorted out when we came back from Malaysia.  Then, 2 days before the party, the little boy decided to change his mind and wanted an under the sea theme instead.  No monkeys, thank you very much.  So I panicked and started trying to brainstorm for ideas again.  Thankfully Pinterest came to the rescue... and I remembered pinning some DIY jellyfish up.  So we modified it and made these:

The boy got markers and paper bowls, and got to go all crazy on them...

And we cut up pages from an old Ikea catalogue into strips and stuck them as tentacles:

We also made starfish, and I got the boy to help too:

For this one, he got to use markers and dotted spots of colour all over pieces of construction paper:

He started getting really excited, so the dots started becoming lines, and he nearly spoilt the marker tips!  Then I just randomly drew squishy starfish and cut them out:

Then the night before the party, I cut up 2 rolls of green crepe paper into strips, and with the FIL's help, hung them from the ceiling using yarn and masking tape.  He did a great job, and even ensured that the yarn was evenly hung from the ceiling!  (FIL was jet lagged, as he just flew down from helping the SIL with her confinement in Norway, and couldn't sleep, so he was happy to help.)   The hubby was on call, so FIL and I just went nuts decorating the place, and he even asked me to draw fishes for him to cut out:

We also turned some balloons into octopuses (or should it be octopi?  I have never figured out which it should be!), but that's for another post:

Then finally we just stuck on the letterings, which I had made last time for Junior J's one year old party. These were recycled from old posters from my teaching days!  And there you have it, our very own wall of seaweed and underwater friends, no scuba gear required!  (And it cost us about $3 bucks in total!)

Happy birthday, my big boy... I'm always so amazed how you've grown, and I'm so thankful God blessed us with you!