Pirate Party

Theme: Pirate Party

Decorations: For this party we had a lot of fun decorating. It was by far the most prep work that I have ever put into a party. It was for my little girls 8th birthday and here in Utah 8 is an important age and we celebrated.
We used a lot of cardboard, green and brown and blue butcher paper, and card board boxes.

 I called Lowe's and asked if they had any appliance boxes. They said that they had a fridge box and a dryer box and a range box. I sent my husband to pick them up and while he was there he noticed that they had empty carpet tubes. So he asked if he could take those as well. I bought a huge black Sharpie marker and some gold paint. We cut open the fridge box to make the back cabin and cut windows and trimmed the front so the flaps met up with the stove box which we used zip ties to secure the pieces together. We used a piece of red table cloth over the top to make the roof. The stove box we cut out a walk through and attached it to the dryer box. The dryer box we cut only one side off, secured the flaps so they wouldn't flop down and made a covered front end. I had some brown paint laying around so I painted over the printed words on the boxes. ( we had flipped the boxes inside out so the paint didn't have to be perfect.) Then I used string to help draw my lines and keep them somewhat straight. Pirates aren't known for being perfect so neither was the ship. I painted some paper plates gold to make the port hole. A carpet tube, curtain rod and sheet make up the mast. And a blue blanket for some water.

 The snack table and game table I decorated with anything pirate or ocean thing I could find: a hook, sea shells, gold coins, some Geodes that I borrowed from my grandpa, jewels that we had gotten at Disneyland a few years back. I looked for more but couldn't find any in my budget. I did find at Michael's, in their wedding supplies, huge diamonds. I used some old colored glass jars, netting and sand, gold bars ( plastic bread pans sprayed gold). The table cloth was a brown and a red long. I just folded the red in half and stripped the brown. I also put on the table some of the game pieces that we would be using on later in the party.

 Card board pieces that I had around I put up pirate signs. I used the sharpie that I had bought for the ship to also make the signs. These were some along with a birthday sigh.

 Some balloons from Zurchers.

 A black poster board flag done with white chalk

This is where more of the carpet tubes came into play. The base was a board about three feet long. On the ends of carpet rolls there is a plastic ring that keeps the carpet from sliding off the end. We screwed that onto the board. Took butcher paper palm leaves and we had palm trees. To make the leaves stay I used kabob sticks and pocked them through the end of the leaves kind of like a safety pin. One leave on each side and the stick on the underneath side. Tape two sticks in an X and they lay across the top of the tube. A little brown paint over the print.

Games:
1. The first thing that I did was that when each child arrives they received a sash (cut stretchy fabric from Wal-Mart) a sword (from Zurchers), an eye patch ( from Zurchers) and a bandanna (same stretchy fabric and some white fabric I had from an old sheet).

2. We had found a huge pirate coloring book, so as we were waiting for all the guests to arrive and suit up the kids colored on the floor.

3. We had a pirate sword fight. With a few safety rules reminded for example only swords to sword hitting, no hitting bodies, have fun and don't hit to hard or you will get caught by the Royal Navy and be put in jail for a minute (sit by me)

 

4. I asked my wonderful, talented friend to come and face paint for the kids. My daughter loves her and she came and painted for us.

While the kids where getting face paint we played some line games.


5. Island Chalk Picture. Using the butcher paper I made an island and water that the kids could use chalk on and add to the picture. (this is an adaptation for the underwater party chalk draw). This was done during the face paint time.

6. Pin the X on the treasure X. I took a brown piece of poster board and drew a map on it. Then cut out X's on my Cricut. I used chalk to draw out the map. I blind folded the kids with the same stretchy fabric.

7. Break into the Fort. I stacked some cardboard boxes, that my husband got from work, into a wall. The kids lined up on a tape line and they each  had two shots at the wall with two huge balls. They keep taking turns until the wall falls down.

8.Tick Toc Croc. The kids would go out in the hall, to start I hid a timer that ticked. The kids then came in and had to find the timer before it rung. I only set the timer for 2-3 minutes. The person that found it got to hide it the next time. We played this through so that everyone got a turn to hide the "croc".

9. Picture Treasure Hunt.  I took close up pictures and wrote clues on the back of each picture. Then so you don't get all confused work backward from the treasure spot to the beginning.

After the kids had found the treasure I had arranged for some "pirates" to come in and try and steal the treasure.

 Inside the treasure bags I put ring pops, beaded necklaces, bracelets, gold coins, Rolos, Starbursts, mini treasure chest found at the dollar store, some pirate finger puppets found at Zurchers. We had some upon a jewelry store that gave the kids a gold bag and they could pick out a polished rock. We called them and asked if they would be willing to donate some of the bags and stones for our party and they did.  I painted a dress up box gold for decoration and hid the treasure inside of it.

Some games that I had planned but we didn't have time to play.

1. Hopping X. Place X's on the floor with masking tape, each child chooses on X to stand on. You tell them an action to do to the next X. Sword fight a pretend pirate, swim, crab walk, dig up treasure. 

2. Splash Tag. One person is pirate it, once they touch someone then they are a pirate and chase after the non it people until everyone is it.

3. Pirate Treasure Race. I painted two toilet paper rolls with the gold paint and then drew circles on them to make them look like stacks of coins. The kids balance the coins in their open hands and would race to a marked spot on the floor and back. If their coins fell they had to step back two steps and then try again. First team to get all the kids their and back win.

The stacks of coins are in the upper left hand corner of the picture.

Cake: I didn't make the usual cake. We just had pirate snacks like gold fish, Swedish fish, apple slices, pretzel swords, and pirate flag brownies.

* I asked a friend to come and take pictures for me so that I could focus on running the party. Best decision ever! Here are more pictures of the ship and party. I also left some time at the end for the kids to just play Pirates and enjoy.

We opened presents in the ship.

One thing about the ship that we constructed. We lived in a small apartment and while in the building process we had to build the ship in two separate pieces because at the completion of the ship it filled our living room. Also with living in an apartment and having a Spring birthday we had to find an area big enough indoors and was blessed enough to use our church's gym.