Pirate Mayhem Birthday Party

So Logan is turning five years old! I cannot believe how time is flying! He wanted a pirate party so I  decided to get creative and see what we could come up with!  i had originally wanted to make an invitation in a bottle and put sand and a few sea shells in it, but I was short on time so i just bought cute pirate invitations at the party store and handed them out on the last day of school. I picked up bandanna's, swords and eye patches for all the kids. I put them by the door so they could become pirates as they entered the party. For decorations I did mainly a theme of red and black. Target had a cute pirate theme party set out. I picked up the banner a tablecloth and a set of napkins and got everything else in red and black to coordinate. I made the boys go grab some of their pirate toys and we decorated the tables with them.It came out really cute!

 He wanted a water party so I immediately came up with the idea to do a water balloon "cannonball" fight. I also knew at that moment I was making pirate ships out of cardboard boxes. Being a military family we have accumulated lots of cardboard boxes. I always keep a few stashed away in case I get a crazy idea! Well a crazy idea I had indeed! I taped together a few boxes and with the help of my dad (the perfectionist) we made them look like ships. I spray painted them black and just painted the names on. I cut a a white bed sheet and made two flags. I drew the skulls with a sharpie from a template i printed off line. I then ripped and burned the flags so they looked weathered. attached them to wooden mop handles and they were done. They came out really cute! The kids loved them!

                                     

I filled up a 100 black water balloons gave each team 50 each in a bucket and they had a blast! I actually thought it would be over alot quicker but the balloons held up really well!!
                                          

We also walked the plank which was a piece of old wood we had in the basement on two buckets. I layed down a blue plastic tablecloth to look like water. I had stuffed alligator to lay in there too but I forgot him!

Then we had a treasure hunt! You can't have a pirate party without a proper treasure hunt! I made the treasure chest out of a large diaper box. I taped the whole thing together and then cut around the box to make the lid. I spray painted it black and added gold curtain tie backs that i found at the dollar store. I thought it came out really cute and it was alot sturdier then the ones you buy at the party stores. It was alot cheaper too! This cost me $1.88 to make. $0.88 for the spray paint and $1.00 for the curtain tie backs! I already had the diaper box! The treasure in the chest consisted of: necklaces, rings, bracelets, fake coins, chocolate coins, fake jewels and ring pops.

I made up a treasure hunt with 4 clues to find the treasure chest! The treasure was hiding by the flag pole at the Coast Guard station next to our house! This was by far the biggest hit to the party!

For lunch we served pizza, plus we had lots of snacks and goodies. For cake, I made a pirate hat and iced it in chocolate butter cream. I also made chocolate and vanilla cupcakes iced in vanilla and chocolate butter cream. I was really not happy with the pirate hat at all. It was really supposed to be iced in a fudgey icing so it would appear smooth. It was also very hot and my icing decorations were melting off! But the kids loved it, and it tasted good and I guess that's the most important part! It looked really cute on my homemade cake stand! I bought two cylinder containers at the craft store for $1.00 on clearance and covered them with red and white scrapbook paper. Then I glued black ribbon around the edges of them. I cut out two large circles out more cardboard boxes and spray painted them black. I trimmed them with matching ribbon, just thinner. I did lay tin foil on the bottom of the top circle because I didn't want to lay the cake right on spray paint. Next time I will use wrapping paper or craft paper, I just spray painted them to make them black and that's what I had on hand!

I made rice krispie treat pirate pops! I decorated them with royal icing and gave them to the kids to take home! I wanted to try something different and I saw a mickey mouse version of these online and figured I would try it!

we also played pin the patch on the pirate, did pirate tattoo's,colored wooden pirate masks and made skull and crossbones necklaces. We had a pinata shaped like a pirate ship. Instead of goody bags the kids took home their bandanna, sword , eye patch and all the goodies they got from the pinata and treasure chest. Overall it went very well! Now I have to start planning a princess and Harry potter parties for Emma and Josh! ;)

                                  Happy Birthday Logan, hope you had a great day!!