Ahoy there!

Cracking fun to work on, this Pirate party!  So much to design and make, loads of new ideas too...

We started work first settling on the colour scheme (not the most difficult task we’ve had) and before I knew it, I was painting red stripes onto a large cut of brown paper which I had previously painted white.  It looked lovely and grainy and so became the overriding theme to gel all the piratey aspects together.  I cut the sheet into triangles for the bunting before painting another A4 size cut of paper to scan in and use it for our PDF invites.  The novelty of drawing, then painting hundreds of stripes soon wore off but I couldn’t stop there and a couple of evenings later, I had completed another very large stripy cut of paper which was to be used as the backdrop in our photobooth.

I do enjoy getting the paintbrushes out so as soon as the stripes had cleared from my eyes, I began painting large clues for the treasure hunt at the end of the party.  The kids would be mostly 4 and under so we devised a simple plan.  Using the letters, P, A, R, T and Y, our clues would be a Parrot, an Anchor, a Rope, some Treasure (under a big cardboard painted palm tree) and a Yo Ho Ho.  The children simply had to look at the printed clues and look about the room to find the actual clues, to which we had stuck little wooden letters for collection.  Once they had done collected all 5, they could claim their prizes – the eagerly anticipated party bags.

The party bags were where we brought in our crafty element and we designed and produced a MYO Piratey Kit; an A4 sheet of paper with beard, moustache and telescope cut outs.  The telescope was ready to go with double sided sticky tape applied and the facial hair cut outs came supplied with elastic pre-cut to size.  

We will make this design available as free download on our website so if you’re looking to pass some time with your littl’un, we have the perfect little crafty activity to spark off a piratey afternoon of play.  With a bit of imagination, a box or an upturned table and sheets can become an ocean going pirate ship – a hidden treat can become treasure to be found using the ‘hot and cold’ game.  Plenty of fun with very little effort.

I had recently discovered a substance called Paverpol and had been desperate to find a use for it so with great pleasure, I spent an evening cutting out felt eye patches and applying Paverpol to the outer side – the inner side was left comfortable, soft and fluffy on the skin and the outer side was hard and shiny.  These eye patches would complete the take home Pirate look and the Paverpol was used again to make some beards and moustaches to be used in the photobooth.  Also in each bag we put a gold foiled chocolate ‘piece of 8’, a chocolate fish, a sugar mouse along with a balloon and a handful of foam stickers (parrots and palm trees, etc). 

We supplied a pass the parcel and a large wooden plank (held up with toilet training steps covered in brown paper!).  Chief Captain Carlyos (mum) made the children walk the plank to get their cake after they had eaten and we made some good old fashioned newspaper pirate hats, complete with skull and crossbones motif and bright yellow feathers.

The last things to go into the party bags were the cupcakes and although I decorated these with black icing and golden pearls, they were made all the more ‘piratey’ using the Meri Meri Pirate toppers cup cake kit.

We hope very much that Captain Miller had a lot of pirate fun on his birthday and look forward to putting it all together for the next little pirate.