Pirate Party!

You're invited to a pirate-themed 4th Birthday party.

Captain Moosie hopes you enjoy the party as much as he did!

The Food:

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Dip (recipe here), served with graham crackers and animal crackers.

Cupcakes (boxed mix, canned frosting, decorations from etsy)

Octopus Crack Dip served with tortilla chips.

Just after this pic was taken I added a few goldfish to the dish. Made it seem much more sea-like.

Treasure chest full of juice boxes and water bottles. Water bottles were pirated-up by wrapping Skull-themed Duct Tape around the label. Duct tape is water proof. It works well in the ice chest.

The Swag:

Favor boxes, pirate gear and pinata contents courtesy of Oriental Trading. Each child received a pirate hat, an eye patch, and a treasure chest box full of booty.

Decorations:

Pirate Code of Conduct printed on burlap. (Burlap instructions here)

Table centerpiece: $5 wood model kit of ship from Micheals Crafts (took a few days for Mr Moose to put together. Might want to start the week before)

Pinata: Purchased from local party store. Stuffed with goodies from Oriental Trading Company.

Balloons: Helium doesn't do so well at high altitudes. Stringing balloons on fishing wire was the perfect solution. Originally learned of the idea here. I used five different colors of balloons. A 15 pack of single-color balloons can be purchased at some place like Walmart for less than a buck.

Outside decorations: A Jolly Roger (Pirate Flag) from Oriental Trading.

Not shown/easily seen:

I love to cover my eating/serving areas with some sort of table covering. The dining table was covered with two different paper tablecloths. The brighter color tablecloth I placed on the table as is. The darker of the two I tore the edges off and hand tore holes throughout the table cloth. Then I place it at an angle over the first. It gave the appearance of old cloth without actually being so.

On the kitchen island, where I served all the food, I placed a yard of burlap draped across the countertop. I didn't worry too much about wrinkles and folds. To fill in the rest of the space I purchased cheap Halloween decorations. I used black "scary" fabric (open-weave fabric with pre-made holes and tears - typically used to cover doors) on either side of the burlap. The effect was pirate-like cloth across the whole serving area.

In each cardboard treasure chest (party favor boxes), I rolled up a do it yourself pirate ship project sheet and a watercolor pirate-themed page for the child to paint (the kind where the paint's already on the page and the child just dips a paintbrush or q-tip in water to paint.

The party went off without a hitch, and the kids had a blast. I was even able to skimp out on the cleaning and claim the dust was part of the decorations. Score!