Every year my daughter has a summer sleepover / party for her friends and close cousins. This year we decided that with the release of Finding Dory, we would do our usual swim party with an under the sea/finding Dory theme. And we would combine it with a watch party of Finding Dory at the drive in.
After some discussion with the kids, we decided instead of setting up our treats at home with the swim party, we would instead set it up at the drive in as a “tail”gate party.
For our “tail” gate party we served Popcorn in a large blue fish punch bowl. The kids could grab their under the sea popcorn boxes (that we sell the printable of – or even will make and ship to you) and fill up with yummy popcorn!
We also served sugar cookies with sugar fish toppers. We purchased the sugar cookies from our local grocer and just added the fun sugar toppers to give it a more themed appeal.
And the sugar fish cookie topper decorations here:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IN8FB3C/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Our “coral” sticks were made by skewering red sour punch belts on wooden skewers. I loved how this gave some dimension to our background and also built on our “under the sea” theme.
You can also purchase the sour belts on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CZ52Q9U/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Mini bite sized yellow Chocolate Beach pails filled with pudding and toffee bits for “sand” were placed inside mini fish platters. These beach pails were originally supposed to stand alone as the pail was made from molding chocolate inside plastic shot glasses. But since our party was held on a very warm summer night, the pails simply were not going to hold up on their own in the humidity. So we ended up just leaving them as is in their mini shot glass holders and they worked just fine!
We originally got the idea for these treats from a post from Hungry Happenings.
We placed some mini chocolate bars wrapped with Dory and friends wraps. Theses and other printables can be found on my Finding Dory Free printables post here.
I also thought that having some chocolate seashells and star fish would make an excellent addition to our under the sea treats!
You can purchase molds for the sea shells on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Okallo-Products-Seashell-Mold-Chocolates/dp/B01B01Q24K/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1467040924&sr=8-2&keywords=Sea+shell+mold
And for the Star Fish on Amazon here:
https://www.amazon.com/CK-Products-3-Inch-Starfish-Chocolate/dp/B003QMMO8A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467041369&sr=8-1&keywords=Starfish+mold
We also served gummy candy sharks over delicious candyfetti! They looked great in this gorgeous blue serving bowl! The Candyfetti gave the look of the gummy sharks swimming in bubbly swished water. Candyfetti is one of my very favorite treats at our parties!
I made some “Hank” octopus truffle pops by making some cake pops on sticks that I added extra melt drizzles for tentacles and then I added paper hank eye cutouts to finish him off.
And last but not least, our kid friendly version of Shark Attack drinks. These were inspired by Thrillist’s Shark Attack Drinks (https://www.thrillist.com/recipe/nation/shark-bite-fish-bowl-recipe), but since all of our parties only feature kid friendly drinks, we opted for a similar yet fun, non-alcoholic drink instead. For our shark attack drinks we used colorful Swedish fish, blue gummy sharks, “Under the Sea” candyfetti from Sweets Indeed (https://www.etsy.com/listing/255845158/under-the-sea-1lb-candyfetti-candy?ga_search_query=under+the+sea&ref=shop_items_search_1), fruit punch and 7 up. We purchased mini fish bowl globes from Dollar Tree. And I used my tall, skinny glass dessert dishes out of a set from Bed, Bath and Beyond – for the shot glass of “Blood”. We filled each shot glass with punch and added one shark inside. Then we pressed the shot glass to the inside of the overturned bowl and quickly turned it to the upright position, leaving the shot glass filled but stuck to the bottom of the fish bowl. We then added candyfetti as our “Sea Pebbles” and added about 3 different colored Swedish fish. We then filled the globes about 1/2 way up with 7 up. The colors of the candyfetti and the fish then gave the water a murky blue/green tint – like ocean water. Each child then took their turn lifting the shot glass and letting the shark inside “Attack”. You could of course omit the shot glass with punch and just use the other ingredients for a little less violent drink. But since we had brothers and boy cousins for the movie part of our party, we knew they would love the special gruesome addition. The girls even loved it as well!
For the decorations, I used a few of my FREE printables I offered on one of my blogs post – that I created in honor of the release of Finding Dory. I also used a few of my “under the sea” items that can be purchased from my online Etsy shop as printable at home items.
The FREE printables can be found here on my blog:
https://waterwalkereventsdesignplanning.wordpress.com/2016/06/17/finding-dory-free-inspired-printables/
To find some of the “Under the Sea” items I sell (some used here), you can look at these items on my shop link here:
https://www.etsy.com/your/shops/WaterWalkerEvents/tools/listings/query:mermaid
We had a great time at our “tail” gate party! Thanks for reading!
