Any Excuse to Party: Aaargh! 'Tis a Pirate Party!

I'm sad that my youngest daughter is no longer into princesses (boo-hoo!). Instead of a typical girly party for a normal little girl turning six, she decided she wanted to have a pirate party. Mostly because she wanted to invite her boyfriends. Ugh. At least it was a theme I could get behind. Who doesn't love talking like a pirate?? Aaargh!

My first go-to when planning a party is Pinterest. If you don't know what Pinterest is, you NEED to check it out. It has become my recipe box among other things, and a great place to gather ideas and websites with tutorials. I found these cute invites for free and printed them on cardstock. Here is the link. They had more printables than just the invites. I also printed off the little sails and flags I used on the orange boats (pictured later).

Overview of the set-up in my living room. When each of the children arrived, we outfitted them in pirate gear (a striped head scarf and eye patch).

The favor bags I found at a local party store. We put in each of them a little jolly roger flag, a bag of Pirate's Booty (my daughter's favorite) and some of the treasure they found at the party. We also tied little foam pirate hats onto them. I found the hats in the Halloween clearance section for cheap.

We had a little photo booth with mustaches, pirate captain hats, and flags. I threw up some cute red and white chevron wrapping paper that I got for Christmas wrapping. It made a great background, but a little bit of a glare plagued the photos. Oh well...totally unnoticeable when there is a cute kid in front.

For an activity, we made pirate spyglasses. I collected and painted some paper towel rolls black, and then added gold duct tape to the rim and middle. The kids got to decorate them with the glitter glue and rhinestones that came with those pirate hats I had tied onto the bags. And how cute is the silver boat?? I found that at a local thrift store for only $5. I didn't have any food I could put in it, but it was so cute I had to use it.

I think they turned out great!

The food. I think it's easier at a party for younger kids to not schedule it around a mealtime. We decided to have the party from 1-3pm, and just served desserts.

This is my attempt at this cake. I made mine smaller because I also made cupcakes, so the idea is there even though I'm no cake decorator (so sloppy!).

Also made these cute jello cups...pretty straight-forward so I won't insult your intelligence with a link to the tutorial. Well, I guess I should give credit to the site I got the idea from.

The cupcakes. Despite my lack of cake decorating skills, you get the idea. The kids were just thrilled that they had swords on them. Their polka-dot head scarves are made from fruit rolls. I found this idea here.

For decor, we skipped the balloons and just had a banner. I made the pirate flags from a black fat quarter from Walmart ($.97) and some white felt. I had the blue and white striped fabric, and bought a red bandanna. To make the banner, I used fusible interfacing to make the fabric stiff (and so I wouldn't have to finish the cut edges) and then stitched them onto some cute red jute from the craft store.

Had a couple of leftover pieces so I made a mini banner for the front door.

Luckily I acquired this adorable Fisher Price pirate ship (from my little brothers' childhoods), because it came in great when there was down-time between activities. That's a good party tip too. A large group of kids can get destructive without something to do! So pull out a couple of toys, maybe that go with your theme to keep 'em busy.

So for one of the activities we knew we wanted to do a treasure hunt (of course!) but after a week of wonderful 70 degree weather we had a huge snowstorm the day before the party (of course). We moved the treasure hunt indoors and had a friend of ours dress like a pirate and show up accusing my daughter of stealing his ship.