Cap'n Emily's Pirate 7yr - Pirate Limbo

For my daughter's 7th birthday she wanted to do a pirate party. 

For the invitation, I printed it out on plain white computer paper.  The invitation read:  Aargh Matey, Ye be invited fer some birthday spirits at Cap'n Emily's Pirate Party  Chart yer course fer YOUR ADDRESS on the DATE  We'll be meetin at TIME fer some swashbucklin fun, grub and majik.  Wave yer flag if ye be attendin or send message by yer phone to PHONE NUMBER. If ye don't,  ye will walk the plank, then it had a skull & cross bones on it.  Underneath the graphic it said See ye there, if ye dare!  I tea stained the paper to look aged and burned the edges.  I rolled it up and put some raffia around it, I left a long end and I put in a plastic water bottle, emptied and label off, of course. In the bottle, I also put a little bit of red sand & small tiny sea shells that I found at AC Moore.  We hand delivered the invitations to make sure they didn't get ruined in the process. 

We started getting the house ready a week before the party. I ordered a lot of stuff from Oriental Trading and we also made a trip to USA Toys.  We decorated our unfinished basement by using the big rolls of black tablecloth and putting that on the walls around the basement.  We hung a fish net (Oriental Trading) and put plastic sea creatures all throughout it.  We had these from a previous luau party so that saved us some money. 

We hung some pirate pictures and skulls around the room.  My husband hung white Christmas lights on the ceiling to create a really cool atmosphere.  I made up signs on plain computer paper, like Beware and Enter if ye Dare and tea stained them and burned the edges.  We put them all over the walls in the stairway leading down to the basement.  We used red and black as the colors for the party.  We used spider webs left over from Halloween and put them all over chairs and objects in the basement. We used a raffia curtain for the entrance into the basement so the kids had to walk through it to get in, this helped finish the effect, and also concealed what they were about to see. 

We got red bandanas, pirate tatoos and eye patches for the kids to put on as soon as they arrived.  After they were all "dressed up", we played pin the patch on the pirate.  After the game, the kids went down to the basement, we were so excited to see their reaction, my husband went down first and put on a CD he made with pirate songs, he looped Yo Ho Ho, it's a pirates life for me, so that it was playing when they all came down, he videotaped their reactions as they were coming through the opening, it was priceless!  When the kids came down, they played LIMBO to pirate music. 

Then it was time to eat.  They just had PBJ sandwiches that were cut out in shapes of fish.  I also gave them sprite with frozen juice ice cubes (idea on this site) that when melted seemed like blood in the water, very cool!  After eating, the pirate magician came.  He was fantastic!  He did magic tricks, he was dressed like a pirate and he definitely has his act down, the kids did not move for the entire 45 minutes he was there. He also does balloon animals, so he made each child one of those as well.  After he left, we did the treasure hunt.  We had made up clues that would lead the kids, broken out in three groups, to different places throughout the house, but the last clue led them all to the same spot, back in the basement where their loot bags were located. 

The loot bags were just plain lunch paper bags with the edges burned, of course, filled with some candy, more pirate tatoos, gold coins, chocolate coins, metallic bead necklaces and bracelets, plus they also got to keep the bandanas,eye patches and balloon animals. Then we had cake.  I made the cake, which was a sheet cake.  I put light blue icing on the top, the bottom was crushed graham crackers, I used gummy sharks & fish and plastic pirate figurines. The cake came out really cool, I found the idea somewhere on the internet. 

As the kids were finishing up cake, the parents started to arrive.  They all had to stop in the basement to see how it turned out,  no one could believe how "cool" it looked.  There were about 30 kids at the party, but I was surprised at how organized everything stayed.  The magician helped my husband and me with downtime, which was great!  The kids still talk about the party and it was a little while ago.  It is a great party idea for both boys & girls.  There were so many more things we could have done with it, this site is a great source for ideas!!!!!