A Pirate Paaaaarty!

I have been so non existence on this blog of mine and I apologize.  But...I have good reason.    I was very busy planning a very special birthday party for a very special little 6 year old in my house.   This year we talked about tons of ideas for the theme and finally settled on a Pirate Party!  It was such a fun theme to work with and there were tons of ideas to steal  borrow on Pinterest!   You know what they say...imitation is the best form of flattery!

After we decided on our theme I went right to work on our invitations.  I searched Etsy for a fun pirate party invite, but I couldn't find one that was mature enough for a soon to be 6 year old, but not too mature at the same time.  So, I made my own.   I found some cream heavy weight paper and designed a pretty basic invite with fun wording and went to work.   I found the idea for the wording HERE.

Next I burned all of the edges of the invites to make them appear old.  That was quite a job.  We sent out 15 invitations so it was pretty time consuming, but I was so happy with the way they turned out and the kids LOVED them.   I personally believe the invitation sets the stage for a great party.

I really combed Pinterest for ideas for this party.  I had so much fun decorating too.   I transformed our mantle in the kitchen to fit our pirate theme.  We had pirate fish nets, flags, treasure chests, cannon balls and telescopes.

I invited my son's entire class so I knew with 15 boys here I would need to keep them busy.  Last year at his superhero party (click HERE to see it), I had "stations" of different activities that the boys did to earn their superhero status.  So I followed the same idea for this year and we had different activities for them to complete in order to get their pirate props.

But first, we dressed them all up once they arrived.   We had boxes of goodies for each child and a sign telling them what they would need to become a pirate....

Inside each box, each boy found a necklace, eye patch, bandana and their treasure map that told them where to go to earn more things towards becoming a pirate.

Here is my son after getting his box of goodies.  To say he was excited is a bit of an understatement.

After the boys were all "suited up", we headed outside to begin earning our pirate props.  We divided them into 4 groups because there were so many of them and each group started at a different place on their map and traveled through the different spots.  Here is what one of the maps looked like.

Similar to the invites, I created these and then just created four different versions.

Here is one of the boys studying his map before we started...

We had 4 different games/activities for the boys to do and at each station they earned something.  I was lucky enough to have a bunch of helpers that day to keep things moving!

The stations were "Walk the Plank" to earn a pirate sword...without landing among the sharks.

And of course they had to test out their swords...they seem to be working just fine!

Another station was "Knock Em' Down" to earn their pirate hooks....

That was very serious business at that station.  They HAD to knock them all down.   Love their determination!

Another station was the "Swab the Deck" where they had to push pirate "cannonballs" off the deck and stay within the lines to earn their telescopes.

And the last of the stations was the "Alligator Ring Toss" to earn their pirate tattoos.  This was actually pretty hard for them.

But their celebrated when they did it....

Our last point for everyone on their treasure maps was to find the treasure and the chest with the "X" on it.

These pirates were VERY excited to see what was inside and each child got a turn to dig up their own buried treasures.

Even the big kids got in on the action.

We headed inside for some pinata fun.  These store bought pinatas do NOT break though so we ended up mutilating the poor pirate to get the goodies out.  I didn't get any pictures at this point because I was too worried that they were going to hit each other by accident when trying to break this guy.

We ended the day with lots of snacks and cupcakes.   With 15 boys and a child with food allergies, food can be difficult.  I planned the party for an off time and did snacks and cupcakes only.  The kids seemed to enjoy it!
 
Here is the before...

I kept the table pretty simple and added a few fun treasure chests for decoration.

I had our kitchen island as the main food area and served watermelon, pretzels, popcorn, grapes and chips.

I wanted to try this fun watermelon shark and it was soooo easy.  I found simple to follow directions HERE. This is what he looked like filled.

And here is what he looked like before.  

I had a separate table for just the cupcakes and a treasure chest filled with goodies that the kids loved.

I made some simple cupcake toppers with card stock, the skull from the invitation (clip art) and toothpicks.  Super simple!

And of course no party would be complete without singing 'Happy Birthday'.  

Overall it was a great party and the boys were so well behaved.  They started out as little boys and left as full blown pirates!  What a fun day!!!

Poshed Up