Hold onto your fishing hats, this is a mammoth post!

Who knew I would fall in love with fishing?!

When Sammy asked if he could have a fishing party, having never ever been fishing, about 9 months ago (Yes, he is as excited about birthday's as I am!) I thought, crumbs, I've never really seen any fishing themed party accessories but luckily for me, the very talented Stacy from Style My Party saw my tweet for ideas and came to the rescue!

I can't thank Style My Party enough for all their help providing so many of the party bits, decorations and details you will see in the photos. And if your little one would love a fishing theme, then you can head over here and purchase a lot of the things you see at our party.

I loved setting out the buffet table! I scoured our house and garage, borrowed a couple of crates and hunted in our local charity shops were I found a reel and lanterns for a couple of pounds. I found squeaky fish dog toys which the Westies will be getting for their birthday this month and came up with alternative uses for a few bits from the fishing section in The Range.

I love having games stations at parties. When you have over 30 children it's hard to make them all sit down for traditional games like pass the parcel and I find it keeps the adults occupied too, going from game to game, enjoying seeing their children having fun. I am a mean party host and don't have lots of chairs for the adults to sit on. I find you end up on your phone, waiting for the time to pass, instead of chatting with the other parents and joining in the fun.

Party Games

Flying Fish • I found weirdly realistic fish which fishermen use as bait for a flying fish game. The children all stood on mats and had to lob their shoal of fish into 3 different buckets!

Tattoo Station • Always a hit with a party heavy on boys, I found fish transfer tattoos on eBay and larger ones that fit your hands to make your thumb it's mouth!

Splat the Fish • I used some disgusting slimy hands on a length of rubbery slime in the pound shop to splat the fish confetti from Style My Party. The rest went on the tables but it was perfect and not too heavy!

River Run • Rich made a marble river run out of a pool noodle which we cut lengthways and propped them in my Mother's Day magnolia tree using cheap plastic rod rests!

Get hit in the face with a wet fish • This was the star of the show! Rich was such a good sport and let the kids pelt him with soaking sponges and a couple of soft toy fish. Ollie was drenched within 5 minutes and loved it, hence the pants photos towards the end!

Balloon Fish • I think balloon modelling is a fab idea as they are fascinated watching the creations come to life! They all loved their rods and fishes from Balloonitude!

Hook a Fish • I used the boys paddling pool and a couple of fishing rod sets from the pound shop to create their own pond complete with lily pads from my sister's actual pond!

I always think at 5 it's incredibly hard to be out. So at our parties no one goes out in musical bumps and statues! I bought a bag of whistle lollies and the last one from each round got a whistle during musical bumps and then a "puffer fish" punch balloon to take home and blow up for the best statue during each round.

We had a few rounds of the Superman song and our resident party DJ, who we have hired for all our parties Billy Chappell Discos, was on hand with lights and music. He is at secondary school locally and has built up a fab business charging £15 an hour for a full disco service!

Fish Print Guest Book • I found a great printable range from Spaceships and Laserbeams and everyone placed an ink thumbprint as a little memento for Sammy to have on his bedroom wall.

Bouncy Castle • Always a hit and I hired the most basic one, no slide, no ball pit and they loved it. Plus it said Under the Sea!

I love having a Photo Booth set up at a party and Sammy's boat shelves were a perfect prop!

The party food went down a storm. I was thrilled when a couple of the Dads complimented me on the detail! The main food for the children was a "tackle lunch box" by Style My Party (How cute are the buckles?!) of fish and chips from our local chip shop who heavily discounted the normal price of a child's portion on the basis that it was such a big order. We got extra chips for the grown ups and used cones and palm leaf plates by Style My Party! They gave me a few of the boxes they normally use for me to use as cake stands and masses of chip forks!

Ideas for Fishing Party Food

I did lots of research on Pinterest and came up with a few new ideas for the buffet table.

Fish Flakes • I used dried fruit flakes and some edible glitter flakes in little pots which looked just like real fish food!

Fish Food • Rainbow drops were perfect or you could call them Rainbow Trout poo?!

Bait • Crushed Oreo type biscuits made perfect dirt for some jelly worms to sit on!

River Rocks • I found candy chocolate rocks on line and put them in tiny specimen craft pots. Tins of sardines made lovely stands too!

Reeds • An easy way to make reeds is with a chocolate log and skewer!

Rods • Sticks of rock made great rods or use liquorice sticks which I used for long worms.

There were a few other fishy treats, Swedish Fish sweets, white chocolate fish and chips and jelly freaky fish.

Drinks • I mixed lemonade & a little blue colouring to make "Sea Water" and Dandelion and Burdock made perfect "Pond Water".

The hall had one big space and one small space, where I set the food tables out longways. The fabulous bunting from Style My Party and some helium balloons tied randomly along the chairs filled the room! Green tarpaulins from the pound shop made perfect table cloths and they were all excited by the "Boat Brew" label by Style My Party and party water! The lunch boxes were so cute too.

The cake was by an incredibly talented local baker DusiCake, who is opening a boutique in Burnham on Sea above the Crafty Teacup Cafe where you can sample her cake tails (Cakes not cocktails!)!

It was a pleasure to spoil our precious boy and give everyone an afternoon of family fun. We know our family have to travel hours, book B&B's and we really appreciate all their help. Master clearer uppers! Sammy even had a little blog friend!

Mum wore a brilliantly on theme "Big fish, little fish, cardboard box" t-shirt! We missed my sister, brother in law and the American family contingent dreadfully! Blasted work and the Atlantic ocean! I have to thank my brother and sister in law for bringing a suitcase full of fish goodies over from America last month including a 5ft long bass that managed to get stuck on the ceiling for a while!

I'd been hoarding things for months so all the guests went home laden with goodies!

Party Favours and Party Bags

Tackle Treat Boxes • I saw printable tags from Spaceships and Laserbeams and had to make up these sweet treats! I bought the cheapest containers I could find and filled them with almost all non branded sweets! Scour your pound shop!

Burlap bags • There's something about hessian that feels like a fishing theme?! Style My Party provided the bags and tags and I filled them with some fishy favours from eBay!

We had an amazing day, all the late nights making bits and pieces were totally worth it!

Now what are we going to do next year?!

You can find the full Style My Party Gone Fishing range here. Thank you so much Stacy for making Sammy's fishing dreams come true!