Pirate Party

Since we ended up having the kids' joint birthday party in Bristol, we decided to let our son invite a few friends who live locally  over to our house on his actual birthday. It was originally supposed to just be a very simple little get together, but pretty much turning into a full blown party. I just can't help myself sometimes when I start getting ideas.

While on vacation a few weeks ago, I stumbled across these super cute pirate swim trunks and a smocked swimsuit at a boutique called the Swing Set in Amelia Island, FL. They were both 40% off, but still a splurge for us. I'm not quite as ...how do you say..."cheap" (haha) while on vacation.

 

 I wanted "H" to have a shirt that would look cute with his swim trunks and regular shorts, so I found a plain white polo on clearance at Belk and had it monogrammed at a little shop called Dogwood Darlins. They only charged $4 and did a great job! I just put it with some red and white gingham shorts he already had.

 

 His breakfast consisted of pirate ship pancakes and cannon balls (blue berries). Although, I don't think he ate much of it cause he was too excited about his party. I found the pirate cup and plate on clearance at Pottery Barn Kids while on a trip to Nashville. (It's starting to seem like I sure do travel a lot.)

So on to the party...





We started the party with lunch. I decided to put the kids lunches in buckets, which would also be useful later on for one of the activities. They each got a cream cheese and jelly sandwich, pretzel sticks (peg legs), grapes (cannon balls), and a juice box. My intent was for the food to go with the theme, but I didn't have it labeled, so I doubt anyone else made the connection. 

The adults had fish tacos, chips, and fruit. I wrapped the fish tacos in red and white striped parchment paper that I found on clearance at Walmart after Christmas for like $.25 for a pack of 40 sheets.

The wrappers for the root beer bottles came from some free printables you can find here.

Umm, yes, my printer cartridge was running out of ink.

 

I am no baker (or really any kind of cook), so I just used a box cake mix for red velvet cupcakes. The cupcake liners came from Walmart, and the toppers were from Hobby Lobby. I love Hobby Lobby, however, I was not impressed with these toppers. They are cute, but the pack was supposed to have 24 and there were only 19. And 2 of those were broken! Maybe I just got a bad batch. I ended up making a few of my own toppers for the cupcakes on the adult table. Crisis averted! Shew!

 

I looked around my house and found some pirate decorations for the adult table. I had no idea I had so many things that looked pirate-y.

I didn't do much for the kids' table. Just put down some red and white striped fabric that I already had and my normal place mats. I just used the cupcakes as a centerpiece. I hung tissue paper pom poms from the chandelier and hung a banner on the curtain rod. 

 

My husband made these great maps for the treasure hunt. I was impressed! He copied the maps onto resume paper, crinkled them up, and burned the edges to make them look old.

We used the costume trunk that is usually in our son's room as the treasure chest. I filled it with tan paper shreds (it was supposed to look like sand) and put all the goody bags on top. The bags were filled with pirate candy (found at the Dollar Tree), sidewalk chalk (dollar spot at Target), a furry stick on mustache (Dollar Tree), inflatable pirate ball (Amazon), and a Ring Pop (Dollar Tree). The labels were from the same free printables I used for the root beer bottles.

 

The banner and flags were also made from the free printables.

 

Everything on the "Dress Like a Pirate" table came from Amazon except the bandannas were from Hobby Lobby. I cut them in half to save money.

 

A baby pool was filled with sand and the kids got to use their buckets and shovels from lunch to search for buried treasure.

 

I found this pirate pool on eBay. It was probably the best $25 I spent. The canon sprays water and a few of the kids thought it was hilarious to spray their parents, haha. We set up 2 baby pools for the younger kids to play in.

I really wanted to try to make the picnic table look like a ship by making a sail for it, but that seamed a little too complicated. Instead, I found a Jolly Rodger flag at Hobby Lobby. I used the stick from a mop that I got at Dollar Tree as the flag pole. The mop head unscrewed right off. I had to use a little Teflon tape to secure it into the umbrella slot.  



Sometimes I let myself get a little stressed out over party planning. Despite a few stressful moments, like discovering a huge (and when I say huge, I mean about the size of a golf ball, haha) wasp nest under the rail of the deck (where a lot of activities would occur) the morning of the party, this one seemed the least stressful of any I have thrown in the past. The kids seemed to have a blast, and I think the parents even had a good time too.