Pirate Party 5yr - Captain Bootstrap

5 year old pirate party  Our son has been wanting to have a pirate party for over a year now, he choose this theme before we had even held his 4th birthday party!!  For the invitations we printed out the treasure map from www.familyfun.com, 2 per page.  On the reverse side we put the following: Ahoy there mateys!  Ye be invited for some birthday spirits at Captain Devon's birthday bash.  He needs some shipmates to swab the deck and hunt for long lost treasure.  Chart yer course for the ___ of ___ at ___.  Join us for some grub, fun & kiddie treats.  Wave yer flag if ye be attendin' if not ye'll have to walk the plank.  Yo ho ho let us know, call deck hand Becky at _____.   See ye there if ye dare.  Then I ripped the edges and I used a brown ink pad and a sponge and "aged" the paper.  I used the blackladder font, it really does add to the ivite.  We had several comments on the invites alone!! 

When people arrived we had decorated with a life size skeleton holding a sign that said enter if ye dare on the door with some Jolly Roger flags.  I made all the signs by using a brown paper grocery sacks- I wrote on it first with big black marker then tore the edges and crumpled it and snmoothed it back out.  We had the sign the skeleton was holding plus others randomly around inside and outside the house that said Beware-Pirates ; Enter at ye own risk; No landlubbers allowed; etc.  The Jolly Roger flags I made by printing out a big skull and crossbones (it filled the 8 1/2 x11 paper) that we also found on family.com.  I cut it out and glued it onto a piece of black construction paper.  We had about 10 of those scattered around the walls and we also had just the skull & crossbones, no black paper.  We also had this great wooden parrot hanging up outside that my mom found at yard sale years and years ago that she keeps in her cabin.  We also had a parrot tissue paper garland and a Happy Birthday pirate banner that I found at our local Dollar Tree about 1 week before the party.  We also had small treasure chests that had necklaces spilling out on the table.  I used old ones that were broken and things- I used all the good ones in the treasure hunt.  You couldn't tell since they were just piled in and spilling out. 

During the party we had a great teasure hunt!  My husband drew an amazing map of our back yard, he used the pictures that were on the invites and used them on his map so that all of our tress and bushes were palm trees and there was a mermaid in our little pool, etc.  We took them to be copied so each child could have one - use resume paper, it was brownish parchment looking without interferring with the lines on the map.  The kids loved them and all took them home- I'm glad I made extras!  We had five stations for the kids to go to.  We had earrings hanging from one tree, we had bandanas in a box under out sprinkler box cover.  We wrapped the lid with brown paper and drew a big black X on it.  We had a smaller brown box with an X full of necklaces, another box that had spotting scopes and we had eyepatches hanging from the fence in a corner.  The kids had to go everywhere in our yard to find the whole costume.  We took a great group picture after they were all done. 

My husband also built a plank for the kids to walk using a 4x4 and some scrap lumber.  The kids loved that.  For the pinata we took a small treasure chest from the Dollar store.  It was to tall so we cut it at the ridge and inserted the smaller part through the bigger part.  (I hope that makes sense)  This did two things, it made it sturdy enough to be a pinata that wasn't going break when the first kid hit it and in made it actually look more like a treasure chest.  We made a trial one first and let our son break it.  Then I painted it brown- I found the best mix was to  paint it with 1 coat of craft paint then 1 coat of spray paint then touch up with the craft paint.  You want to use spray paint sparingly on styrofoam or it will get eaten awy.  This way we only spent $3 on the pinata, including the tester instead of $15.  It was filled with ring pops, candy necklaces, Pirates of the Caribbean fruit snacks, chocolate coins and Nestle treasures candy.  (The assortment comes with red, blue, green and gold wrappers- they look like big chunks of rubies, sapphires, emeralds and gold).  For the loot bags I took plain brown lunch sacks and wrote pirate names on them- My son was Captain Bootstrap Devon.  We also had Cannonball Cooper, Wild Eyed Bailey, etc.  Then I crumbled them up and smoothed them back out.  We also had extra chocolate coins on the cake table and all three flavors of the Pirates of the Caribbean M-n-M's. 

For the cake!!  We had two parties one for the friends and one for the family.  We did one cake at each party.  The first one was a pirate cake.  The recipe is on www.bettycroker.com.  They also have one on familyfun.com but he honestly doesn't look as good.  The one on bettycrocker was 2 round cakes, one was the face, the other you cut to make his bandana and his shoulders.  You use a peppermint patty for the eyepatch, Fruit Streamers for the string and the stripes on his shirt, chocolate sprinkles for whiskers, a lifesaver for the hoop earring, another with a YoGo in it for the other eye and a piece of gum for the one yellow tooth.  It was super cute!!  The other cake was a pirate ship.  You take 2 round cakes and cut them both in half.  Stack all four pieces and turn the on the side so that the rounded edges are on the platter with the flat side as the deck of the ship.  It's very 3-D.  You use wooden skewers as the masts and cut out sails from paper.  Use the piroline(sp?) wafer cookies as cannons on both sides, we then stuck the candles into the cannons- you don't want to set your sails on fire.  We used plastic pirate figures (Dollar Tree), it also came with a small treasure chest that we put some small parts of the necklaces.  It also had rootbeer barrel candies for the powder kegs and some indiuvally wrapped Rolos (gold) by the treasure chest.  It was a great cake and surprisingly easy to make.  Both of them were really.  At the friends party the kids got to take home the treasure hunt costume things  and the loot bags from the pinata.  For the family party we didn't have the pinata so I put some of the same items and put thenm in the loot bags beforehand and they got to take home the treasure hunt costume itmes.  We had 27 people at the friend party (13 kids) and 28 at the family party (only 6 kids).  The one cake at each party worked out pretty well.  I also prescopped the ice cream before the party into red cupcake liners.  This is great to do because you just set them on the plate during the party and don't have to worry about the bother in the moment.  I do this at every party I host now. 

Both of the parties were great, we had many compliments.  I used fabric from the dollar section at Joann's for the bandanas, we ordered the earring, spotting scopes and eyepatches.  We used OTC and deadmentellnotales.com.  The "jewels" I bought at Walmart and the 50% off card store.  With some advanced planning and price comparisons I was able to get really good deals.  We also ordered the pirate tattoos and stickers from OTC for extra things for the kids to take home.  We used plain red napkins, plates and cups- that really cuts down costs too.  For both parties I spent about $100 total- food included.  The parents have been telling us how much the kids love the costume things- everyone has been dressing up like pirates for the last few weeks!!  We had a great time!