Pirate Party

I'm sitting down now after everyone has fallen asleep and necessities completed for a moment of quiet.  Meanwhile, our neighbors twin boys seem to be having a graduation party into all hours of the night.  It makes me remember to appreciate this stage right now and all the beauty of it, while still being excited for their futures and the joy yet to come. 

Having your firstborn age half a decade will get you to thinking about these things I suppose!  My eldest is the most amazing, smart, gregarious, loving little boy I know and I just love how he's never met a stranger, only new friends.   He has a real heart for people and a matter-of-fact way of thinking that is so fun to see mature with him!  My miracle boy. 

Okay, enough mush, let's get to the party!  It's often been done before, but he picked such a fun theme this year: pirates!  I wanted to post this to share our joy of the day as well as our take on the pirate theme for any looking for inspiration. 

THE GAME:
Yes, there was only one, but it was kind of several mixed together.  Also, it was nearly a hundred degrees that day and no one wanted to do much more!  We went on a pirate challenge/treasure hunt.  Basically,  we had a bottle on the table with a call for pirates on it and instructions to follow the clues to several different destinations and complete the pirate tasks at each one so that they could prove their pirate-ness.  I tried to write them in rhyme (though it didn't always work) on coffee-aged paper with burned edges.  Their tasks included walking up a gang plank, tying figure eight knots (great guide for many knots from Survival Life), (foam) swordsmanship, (cardboard) anchor tossing, and sail hoisting!  Then the final station's clue came with a map of the property and an X marking the spot where they had to dig up the treasure chest (full of dollar store compasses, ocean stickers, necklaces, rings, doubloons, etc. in an old tool box). 

setting out to find the first clue

Reading the Rhyme

 

Tossing the Anchor (they had to work together each time and make sure one member of the crew had the other end of the rope "tied off to the ship")



Hoisting the sails

Divvying up the loot 

THE FOOD:
Shark Bait (Goldfish) and Cannon Balls (Malted Milk Balls)

Port Holes (the last one!)

Octopus Lagoon Veggie Tray (Now sinking and missing a few legs!  Just go for this example by Denna's Ideas)

Ropes and Gummy Sharks

Treasure map cake












THE DECOR:
We flipped over our fishing boat for seating and set out a basket of pirate dress-up items.  Behind the house I used pavers to mark out the outline of a ship deck and in the middle placed a weighted fence post.  To that I lashed a few branches to hold the sail to the mast.  And that was pretty much it.  Because of the heat we made sure to have the kiddie pool full and sprinkler going.  I love outdoor birthday parties!  I did print out some coloring sheets for the very little ones (but our crayons started to melt in the heat!), "What's Your Pirate Name" and a Mad-Lib type game for the adults.  Bonus: These cute invites! 

To all who came I want to say a huge thank you!  You made this party such a joy for him and he was nearly overwhelmed by the love shown him.  Seriously, the entire next day he was basically in a daze! 

One tuckered pirate

*Note: most of these photos were taken by my dear mother-in-law, Dena Kelm.

Recovery (Fair Review and New Game: Pong Hau K'i!)

Alright folks, climbing back in the saddle after a wild rodeo of a weekend!  But it sure was fun!  As I mentioned before, I've been a bit absent of late prepping for GWMC's first craft fair!  It was very small, but I made a handful of sales and met some really wonderful people!  Thanks to all of you who stopped by or had a hand in the behind-the-scenes work!  I can't imagine having done it without you (certainly not without a few more silver hairs to add to my crown ;)

All in all, I felt pretty prepared (thanks to some Pintrest hints).  Maybe a little too prepared.  I may have diversified excessively, but I think it worked out in the end.  I sold everything from skirts and bibs to notecards to fudge!  One item that caught all the children's eyes were these little game boards with flat marbles as game pieces.  I'll be honest, Josh and I broke them out during some of the slow times, too!  But so easy to make and I wanted to share the idea with you!

You can get these tree rounds at a craft store, but they can get a little spendy.  Josh just took a branch that had been trimmed from one of our trees and went at it with the chain saw!  I was really quite impressed with how narrow he was able to get them!  I'll have to remember that for future projects! =)  After a light sanding, I did some quick straight lines with a wood burner, but I'm sure you could accomplish the same effect with a permanent marker.  Then seal with a layer of matte clear coat!

I'm fairly certain everyone knows how to play tic tac toe, so I'm not including instructions.  Though my four year old and his buddy had a pretty interesting version of it that I'm sure they'd love to teach you if given the chance =)  But I found this other small board game from China called Pong Hau K'i that I thought was really fun!  The idea is that to players each have two pebbles.  They take turns placing them one of the intersections or corners.  They then continue to take turns moving to the open space with whichever pebble can go there by following a line until one player is unable to move.  So you try to trap your opponent onto one side.  Video instructions from "What Do We Do All Day."  I really enjoyed learning something new and simple to play and I hope you will, too!