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Who doesn’t love The Octonauts? Created for the BBC by Silvergate Media, this underwater adventure cartoon not only entertains children the world over, but educates them about sea life as well. It’s no wonder that kids are requesting an Octonaut themed birthday party these days.

The Octonauts have a recognizable style that is fun to incorporate into a theme party. If your youngster is an Octoenthusist, keep reading for a helping of the best ideas for transforming a birthday party into an Octoadventure.

Invitations

I’ll suggest two different routes you can go here. One is for the creatively inclined, and the other is for the parent who may not have oodles of spare time to self-create every facet of this birthday party.

Make your own

• First of all, keep in mind that the color scheme for The Octonauts is pretty straight forward. Just think blue and orange. Instead of eyeballing the specific shades, use R5 G89 B135 or #055987 for Octonaut blue and then the orange is R253 G122 B31 or #FD7A1F. For example’s sake: you would use the RGB code when creating a custom color in Microsoft Word (R5 G89 B135) while Google Doc’s requires the color palette code (#055987) for the same shade.

• Next, go peruse the clip art from “World Of Disney” to grab free clips for your invitation. The selection is great and they’re free!

• Finally, create your own invitations and print them on cardstock. With the colors spot on and a generous helping of strategically placed clip art, your invitations are sure to look Octoriffic!

Grab some pre-made invitations

For the time-crunched supermom, decisions have to be made concerning what you will spend that precious nap time on. If time is not available to create your own invitations, grab some Octonaut birthday party invitations online and check that item off your list. You’re good, real good.

Party packs: this is the way we get things done

If you have read my other posts on themed birthday parties, you already know that I fully believe in cheating when it comes to transforming your living space into a themed party wonderland. The fact is, we don’t have lots of time on our hands. All's fair in love and parenting.

Start with a Basic Octonaut Party Pack and then embellish from there. This will save you tons of time and make you look like a coffee-guzzling never-sleeping parent with mad skills; all without dipping into your child’s college fund just to pay forit. Taking a step up from a basic package, the Super Deluxe Octonaut Party Kit offers a bit more as a starting point.

Create the ocean above your head

With the party pack as a jumping off point, now add some “water” above your little guest’s heads. Balloons transform ceilings and walls faster than an unsupervised child with a permanent marker. Grab a few bags of sky and true blue balloons and either fill them with helium or hang them from the ceiling with colored ribbon and tacks. To enhance the effect, use a roll of crepe paper streamer and dangle streamers of “water” from the ceiling and doorways.

Add wall decals

To complete the immersive effect, purchase a set of Octonaut wall decals and distribute them liberally on the walls and anything else that needs a bit of aquatic flavor. The fridge, windows and doors can all be recruited into the design. Aside from the three main Octonaut decals, this giant set gives you plenty of bubbles, plants and sea creatures to go wild with. The decals are made of vinyl. Instructions and a squeegee are provided to help with application.

A birthday banner shouts it out loud

The icing on the cake here is a big banner that you string up in some strategic place at the party. No matter what the banner actually says, the message is loud and clear: “IT’S ALL ABOUT YOU!”.

Use a free printable banner

With a little time and effort, you can go grab this free printable Octonaut banner generously provided by Leigh Davenport and print it up yourself. Tape it together and hang it on the wall or across the room.

Get a ready-made banner online

To save some time and a copious amount of printer ink, hop online and purchase an Octonaut birthday banner that will arrive ready to hang. Suspend the banner in the perfect place inside or hang it outside where guests will see it as they arrive. This banner is made of heavy duty vinyl with grommets installed and will handle outdoor use better than a printed banner.

Play with your food

With the rest of the scene lavishly decorated, it may be a bit hard to set out ordinary snacks. A bit of creativity and a cute label can turn Cheese Puffs into “Octopus Puffs” and mere Kool Aid into “Jellyfish Juice”. Download some free food label templates found here and edit them to name each item creatively. To get the creative juices flowing, here are a few ideas for turning ordinary snacks into Octotreats:

• Carrot pieces can become “Buncha Muncha Crunchy Carrots”.
• Make “Barnacle Kabobs” from grape skewers.
• Star shaped rice crispy treats make great “Sticky Starfish”.
• Cut cheese into little triangles and label them “Shark Teeth”.
• Sandwich style cookies can easily become “Clam Cookies”.
• Stick some eyes on small croissants and you now have “Crab Snacks”.
• “Squid Snacks” are made by partially slicing hot dogs long ways before cooking them.
• While making clear cups of blue Jello, drop a single Swedish Fish or Gummy Worm into each cup before the Jello solidifies. Label them as “Shellington’s Ocean Samples”.

Play Octonaut Bingo

With this free Octonaut Bingo game, it’s a snap to create a fun activity that stays with the theme. Since children love to put stickers on things, including television sets and freshly cleaned floors, print up enough bingo cards so that the kids can put Octonaut stickers on the squares instead of tokens. You’ll go through more Bingo cards, but the fun is well worth it. Additional sticker packets make great prizes for this game.

Octonaut Memory game

In keeping with the Octonaut backdrop of learning, an Octonaut themed Memory game goes over well with small children and also makes a great party favor to send home with little guests. After you do a test print on cheap paper to be sure that the front and back line up, print this Octonaut Memory game on thick card stock and cut the cards out. Bundle each set with a rubber band and let the fun begin.

Pin the Octonaut game

There is something about blindfolding a child, spinning them in circles and then watching them stumble around like a miniature drunk person that keeps “Pin the Tail on the Donkey” alive and well in modern parties. Change the theme to match and you have a theme-compliant activity. Use the high quality clip art from “Wonders of Disney” to create a suitable Octonaut poster and then decide on an item to be “pinned”. A few ideas for this game would be:

• Pin the Octoalert. Print up a poster of the Octoalert icon and have young guests pin a small disk to the poster.
• Pin the Patch on Kwazii. Print up a nice picture of Kwazii and then create a separate eye patch out of black construction paper. Let the laughter begin.
• Use your imagination and the handy Octonaut clip art to create your own rendition of this classic game.

As a matter of habit, I ALWAYS suggest that some Sticky Tack be substituted for the pin that was so brilliantly used in the original game. Most parents would be quite alright if the pin in “Pin the Tail” fades into history along with steel tipped lawn darts and candy cigarettes.

Send guests home with a “Thank You”

It’s always a nice touch to end the party by sending the guests home with a simple note to thank them for coming. These Octonaut “Thank You” notes fit the bill perfectly. A fun alternative to “Thank You” notes would be these free “Honorary Octonaut” certificates. Print them up and fill in the guest’s name to add a personal touch.