Fish Extenders ~ Part 1

Time is getting away from me and with still so much to do I need to get one of the big projects underway, Fish Extenders!!

For those who haven’t heard of this before, several online Disney Forums run a meet up & fish extender exchange on their cruise.

What the heck is a fish extender (FE) and what is a fish extender exchange (FEE) I hear you ask?

It’s a “secret Santa” concept, a gift exchange that occurs during your cruise. The idea behind it is to spread & share magic with your fellow forum members. It’s called a “Fish Extender” because outside of every stateroom there is a fish mounted to the wall with your cabin number. It was put there by Disney as a way to deliver notes & messages to you without entering your room. Now people have taken to use it as a hook & hang their “Fish Extenders” from it.

First thing first… where does one get a Fish Extenders? As we need one per room so I am going to need approx. 8 … Answer is you make them! Now my sewing skills are ok but this is a big project so I am calling in help from my mum & one of her friends.

As this is going to be the second travel gift that is sent with newsletter #2 at this point it’s still a surprise, so everyone won’t have an opportunity for input into their decorations. With that in mind I definitely want to decorate each to reflect their trip & personalities and not make it about the wedding.

I was hoping to do little embroidery pattern on each pocket but I won’t have time, instead I am going with iron on designs & embellishments.

For this project I am going to need:

*8 x pieces of doweling

* Backing material for backing

* Lots of colourful material for the pockets

* The iron on images & embellishments.

* 8 cable ties (for the cruise to secure the FE from the fish) 

This is going to take a while; we have finished the sewing of the first one, now to add the embellishments