Planning a Pirate Party Guide

Hi Friends!  Many of you gave GREAT ideas for Hunter’s Pirate/Princess Party.  Arrrr Mateys!  Thanks! 

Now you are in for a VERY long post… with every detail written here for all of you to pass on to any future Pirate Party throwers.  Get comfortable, it will take you 30 minutes to get through.  But I blogged it with the intention of passing the plan on to some other Mom… so somebody, please use these ideas!

IDEA #1: COMBINE THE PARTY WITH ANOTHER ONE OF YOUR CHILD’S CLASSMATES.  Do you want to invite every kid in your child’s class?  Do you want to be able to do every single creative thing that comes to mind?  Do you want to keep within a tight budget?  Do you want to insure good attendance? Do you want to do half the tasks, and feel totally stress free throughout the party?  Combine the party with another fun mom.

IDEA #2: NAME TAGS.

   When the kids walked in, we gave them these treasure chest name tags.  Pirate/Princess neutral treasure chest on laminated cardstock.  This is pirate Richard.  Copy and paste the below, and then print, cut and attach to ribbon.  I found it at the below website.  It was originally made for huge banners, so I shrunk them, and put 4 on a page.  Hope you can also get uses out of my OCD.  If you want to go the extra mile, print their names on each one before they come.

IDEA #3: COLORING PAGE PARTY OPENER.  Because everyone walks into a party at different times, we had them first color their treasure map before we got started.  Also, b/c most could read, we decided to print the agenda on the map too.  I found the map through a Google image search, found this great map.  Then I moved the palm trees and such around so I could fit in text (using a digital image software, like Photoshop… THANKS Tami for starting this addiction 2 years ago!). 

  

Here, I’ve made a generic one for you (copy, paste into word, drag the handles to the proper size you’d like):

 

Here are some of the guests coloring to the music in the background:

Also, you could write their names on their maps, so it could serve as a place holder for when the pirates and princess had to set down their tiaras/boas/swords/hooks/hats/treasure/candy/plate of food for activities.

I found ALL of my pirate clip art HERE for Free!.  The quality (resolution) of the images were amazing.

IDEA #4: SEA LIFE CENTERPIECES.  These centerpieces you will use over and over again.  The best party investment I’ve ever made (okay, confession, found them in a ‘free box’ at a garage sale).  Anyway, these fish nets and seashells have been used for Luaus, Light house themed parties, tropical parties, & now a pirate party.  Oh, and I also got some cheap red table cloths.  If you are going to invest in several table cloths, get RED.  You will use them for valentines day, Christmas, Cinco De Mayo, 4th of July, etc.  And you can always get cheap table runners to stripe through the center if you need to pull in another color.

IDEA #5: MUSIC.  Char (Whitaker’s Mom) found all kinds of fun kid pirate music on itunes.  It was playing at drop off and pick up times, as well during a few games.

IDEA #6: ON THE INVITATION, REQUEST GUESTS DRESS AS PIRATES OR PRINCESSES.  Have them notify you if they do not have a costume.  Pirates and Princesses are so popular now days that, of the 28 that came, only 3 needed help with costumes.  Luckily, I’d found some random vendor selling pirate costumes for $1.50 USD each here in China (he was moving his business, and had to liquidate his Shanghai inventory).

And ‘some’ adorable & unbloggable little Chinese babe came to the party wearing pirate baby leggings, and princess crown shoes.  She sure was cute!

IDEA #7: USE A WASHABLE MARKER AND GIVE THE GUESTS MOUSTACHES AND GOATEES. (THANKS Gin FOR THE IDEA!!).

  

IDEA #8: ESTABLISH AN ‘ATTENTION CALL’.  For a big party, kids need some ‘order’.  Make some kind of noise or call that means you need their attention, or need them to repeat back to you.  Anytime we needed their attention, Char would yell “ARRRRR!” and all the pirates would yell “ARRRR!!!” back loudly while making their fingers shaped like a hook.  Then she’d have the princesses say “Yodeleheehoo” and do a curtsy with their skirts.  And yes, the girls were very dainty, and took the call very seriously, despite all the “AAAARRGH”….like this:

IDEA #9: TROPICAL TEMPORARY TATOOS.  Tie a bag with all the tatoos around your neck with yarn.  Also attach a bag of cotton balls and a water sprayer.  I forgot to bring the water sprayer, so it wasn’t as easy just using wet cotton balls.  Oriental trading company sells them for super cheap.  These are leftovers from past parties… just like #4, there are some party supplies you can use over and over.

IDEA #10: PIRATE RELAY.  This was Char’s brilliant idea.  She made a pirate boat and a princess castle out of cardboard (which also made for awesome decor as the kids walked in).  The kids had to put on their respective costume pieces and run down to the end of the room and run back, passing the costume pieces and cardboard piece to the next in line.

IDEA #11: WALK THE PLANK FREEZE DANCE!  This was also Charolette’s idea.  It was so creative.  Originally, the kids were going to be outside, and walk around the sand box edging (without falling off) to the sound of the pirate music, when the music stopped, if they fell off the ‘plank’, they were out.  BUT IT RAINED!  So we just did it inside, and had them either dance or sword fight while walking in a circle. 

              

IDEA #12: TREASURE HUNT.  My High School good friend, Serene Lebb,  shared an idea of having a trail of black squares (construction paper) leading to the treasure.  We were going to have large strips of black ribbon leading to the treasure.  My Niece, Angelica had the idea to bury the treasure in a sand box.  So we were going to do just that.  BUT IT RAINED!!

The ‘Treasure’ was large gold coins and jewel wrapper colored candy inside a organza bag.  I then put that inside a plastic bag to keep it clean in the sand… but the rain… so we just hid the treasures downstairs.  Didn’t get pictures of the treasure, darn it.  If you really want to get tricky, you could have names on the treasure, and they dig in the sand to find their own.  Great way to keep them busy.

IDEA #13: PARTY FAVORS. Because we live in China, we got things for really cheap.  We had a budget of around $2 USD per child that Char and I split.  So the girls got mini crystal tiaras (crystal is cheap in china) & Boas.  The boys got a choice of a pirate hat, or a pirate costume, or a pirate patch.  They each got their own pirate hook and balloon sword.  You just take the long balloons and fold them into swords, super easy.  It’s on Google.

IDEA #14: PINATA.  This is a hit at every party.  And if Charolett hadn’t found one at a local shop out here, we would’ve just Googled it.  I’ve heard of people using newspaper, flour, and water- and making a simple treasure chest piñata.  Anyway, here are the Piñata pics:

And, yes, Tim has shed some pounds.  About 20?!  He’s been running a lot lately.

IDEA #15: GROUP PICTURES.  If you have access to a stair case, it makes for the best picture stage for kids.  Have them start at the top, then have them all at once (one, two, three) jump down one stair.  Take a picture, then down a stair, then take a picture.  You won’t loose their attention this time, and for SURE every kid looks at the camera.  At each stair change, have them change their pose.  IE: goofy face, biggest hugest smile, pirate/princess pose.

Hugest Smile Pose.

Pirate & Princess Pose , left picture.  Goofy face, right picture.  The cool thing about doing pictures this way (if you have a staircase) is that in every picture, just about every set of eyes is on the camera!  A real feat with 30 kids, no?!  Try it.  Prop them on the staircase next time.

IDEA #16: THE FOOD DECOR.  We didn’t do any real decor with balloons and streamers.  Char made an amazing spread with mac & cheese, cheese and meat skewers, colored jello with gummy fish, pb & j sandwiches etc.   With each dish, she had large skewer stick sticking of it with various sizes of black and white skeleton flags.  She said she found the image/ clip art image doing a basic image search on Google, then just printed them and cut them out and taped them to the skewers.  It was beautiful.

IDEA #17: THE CAKE. Click HERE.  ‘Nuff said!!  This site gives awards to people who make amazing cakes and put them up for competition.  It was the inspiration behind this Pirate Ship Cake.  It was the fastest cake ever.  I just put lego pieces on the cake for decor.  And attached all the extra pieces with toothpicks. 

Ok, truth be told.  I was scared to death.  I’ve never made a homemade fancy cake before (besides the volcano one I make for their 1st year Luaus, that’s literally dumping cups of crumpled cake, and smashing it into a volcano shape, easy).  So I was praying my guts out this would turn out.

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IDEA #18: PIRATE CUPCAKES.  This was my first time using fondant.  It was like they say, just like using play dough.

   

Step one: roll little circles of red and peach colored fondant (peach is made by using very little red, and just a drop of yellow food coloring).  Cut those circles in half to make pirate bandanas, and the pirate face. 

Wet the perimeter of the peach half circle.  Press it into chocolate sprinkles in a bowl.

 

Put the red part on, and twist the corner to look like a knot.

Use shoe lace licorice (I actually found that in China!!), unroll it, and cut to the width of the cupcake.

Cut 1/3 of a chocolate chip.  Push the chocolate chip point up into the cupcake.

Then your cupcake should look something like this:     

Last notes… seriously, combine a party!!  I only spent one evening (after the kids were in bed) making the cupcakes & Cake, then 2 hours in the morning.  And only about 6 hours divided up through out the month doing other things (making coloring pages, name tags, party favors etc).  And we were able to do everything we wanted, half the time, half the energy, half the budget & I got to do my favorite ‘visual’ things, and Char did all the activities and lunch!

And… 2 hours felt a little long to have a party, even with tons of activities.  I would recommend 1 1/2 hours.  In the end, we had to tie in duck duck goose and musical chairs with the extra time.  We also gave the kids free time to run around. 

Oh, and never mind how GREAT it was with the dads getting involved, they were TERRIFFIC, the stars of the show!!  Trent was the best Duck Duck Gooser, the kids were laughing their tails off!  And toward the end, Tim put the cardboard princess castle on himself and ran around and let all the pirates get him with their swords and hooks (it was a great way to get all that boy energy out!).

Happy party planning, friends!!