Bacon Cheese Burger

The party plans for my two younger children never quite came to fruition. We celebrated an April and a May birthday in July with a few close friends (whom we called at the last minute!) With all the renovations, I just couldn't get my act together. Since we had promised the kids, I managed to throw a small swim party together; easy and outdoors!

The good news was that I had already collected most of the things for their themed parties. These large chocolate fish, found at Wal-Mart during Easter, prompted the fishin' theme for my son's party. Since I didn't need them right away, I waited until after Easter to purchase them. They had tons of them, and I doubted people were filling their Easter baskets full of chocolate fish. Plus, they would be on sale!

Wal-Mart also had these chocolate bunnies with fish and red and white bobbers. I set the bunnies aside and used the other chocolates. I had cut down a bunch of bamboo to make fishing poles and had planned to hang the fish and bobbers from fishing line to give as party favors. Unfortunately, I never got around to it! Just passing along the idea...it seemed like a good one!

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Another idea I had was to get some maps of Lake Wylie or sketch a simple one and put copies in the baskets. It didn't happen, but thought I would share! I saw on one Pinterest site, someone also made up fake fishing licences. That would have been cute, too!

Another cute idea from Pinterest was to put these gummy worms in plastic cups of crushed Oreos, to look like worms in dirt. So cute! Time was an issue, so I put these in clear bags with labels purchased at Hobby Lobby.

Swedish fish were packaged the same way...

...as were the peanut butter sandwiches. Another idea I had was to use a cookie cutter shaped like a fish to make the sandwiches...as you see, I did not find one because of so little time. Later, I saw that they actually make goldfish shaped bread! Good to know if you are planning a fishin' party!

This idea was found at Pinterest, as well. I bought the cupcakes from our local grocery store with blue icing. I added the fish, pretzel and fishing line, made with white icing.

I didn't have a good picture of the little fishing creels, but here you can see them, as the boys eat their lunch. I found these at Hobby Lobby...a bit pricey, so I waited until the baskets were 50% off.

The baskets were lined with newspaper and filled with a sandwich, Goldfish crackers, a drink, chocolates and candy. These served as the party favors, too! Because I packaged each lunch individually, it made things much easier! I made them ahead of time, so there was no stress prior to the party and very little clean-up.

While we didn't actually do any fishing, the boys did swim with the fish, went canoeing and splashed around.

Simple and easy. To see my 'Gone Fishin' Board on Pinterest, click

For my daughter's belated celebration, we made picnic baskets. These served as their lunch, as well as party favors. I had purchased the Lilly fabric from Ebay a long time ago, to use for making quilts for my daughters. I had so much, that I cut squares for each of the few baskets. The baskets were clearance items after Easter at Michael's. I think I paid fifty cents each. This eased my conscience, because of the price of the fishing creels!

These little gingham party favor boxes also came from Micheal's around Easter. I filled each with fruit.

These adorable Lilly Pulitzer animal crackers from Hobby Lobby prompted the theme for the Lilly Picnic.

I filled the baskets with the fruit, a sandwich, the animal crackers, juice (pink, no less,) a ring pop, bubbles and a pink and green notebook.

I had the pink and green flower cupcakes made at the local grocery store. We spread a large blanket out on the lawn, handed each child a basket and had a very simple picnic! Easy to prepare and easy clean-up! Most importantly, we kept our promise!

Thanks for stopping by for these belated parties!

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Original article and pictures take http://threepixielane.blogspot.com/2012/09/two-parties-fishin-and-lilly-picnic.html site