I know by my stat counter that someone, somewhere is reading my blog. You would never guess it by the lack of comments (ahem), but the numbers don't lie so I have decided to write a post detailing the planning of my son's birthday party for any momma out there who may need some inspiration for their lil buccaneers. I relied heavily on the internet for help along the way and I wanted to pass it on. :) My hat is off to the women from the past who had to, you know, read books and talk to others for ideas. This post is for all the novice party planners like myself:
*Patrick's 5th birthday party!*
I gave myself weeks for planning, yet I still didn't manage to finish everything I wanted to do (little final details like black streamers in the doorways and a few miscellaneous signs, etc). A problem I encountered was...STUFF! So much stuff to look at, buy, or make. I recommend creating a plan and then sticking to it! Buy your supplies and then try very hard to not add items. I kept adding to my supplies which added to my work. So a lot of the preparations waited till the last minute due to my ordering things right up until the last minute. Clearly the food had to be put off till Saturday and Sunday to prepare (the party was on a Sunday afternoon). Looking back, I really wish I had set aside time every night to go through the loot little by little because I ended up sorting through it all Sunday morning and it was stressful/took away some of the fun trying to cook and get the tables set up, PLUS do the loot bags. That was something I will do differently in the future. My thinking was that if I started earlier it would have gotten disorganized and I would have confused myself, not to mention I had new arrivals of loot daily. It was overwhelming so I dealt with it by not doing it until it had to be done. However I should have cleared out extra space somewhere safe and done it much sooner. Oops!
Tip #1: Allow no less than 3 weeks to plan your party. Get the most accurate as possible head count before putting the finer details together to save money/time.
As true Disney (and particularly Pirates of the Caribbean) lovers, the theme of the party had been decided years ago. Patrick has been a huge fan of the franchise ever
since his first encounter with Captain Jack Sparrow at WDW when he was not quite 3 years old. Every time we made a trip to Disney he requested to visit Jack, and it seemed like he was always singled out by the Captain. This prompted us to let him watch the movie, and it has been a serious preoccupation for him to this day. True love. Since I think throwing parties for toddlers is stupid (sorry, but it is) this was Patrick's first party and I wanted to make it something he'd remember. Mission: Accomplished.
I checked out a party store in the big town nearest to us. I found a lot of props, decorations, and treasure that I really wanted for our party, but the price tags caused a moment of hesititaion. Thankfully, Rick agreed to come with me so I begged asked in a normal tone for him to please take the children far away from me so I could think
straight for a few minutes. I love my smart phone and the ability to save enormous amounts of money with a few simple taps on my device. Within ten minutes I purchased probably half of my party supplies-no, no, not from the store I was standing in. From my phone, with my beloved eBay app.
TIP #2: Do NOT buy ANY supplies without checking sites like eBay and Amazon to compare prices beforehand.
After picking up the things I did want from the store we left, just under $100 poorer, and enthusiastic to create a true birthday party experience, not just custom plates and cake-which is what I'd always considered an acceptable birthday celebration.
Invitations:
After being properly motivated, the first order of business is the invitations. It goes without saying-the fewer guests you have the more STUFF you can buy. I'm a big believer in inviting a whole family, including all siblings. (I have never understood the concept of only inviting one child in a family-the poor siblings whom feel left out, and the poor mommy whom more than likely has to LEAVE her child so the excluded children aren't around...I don't get it!?) You have to decide-better and more STUFF, or better and more guests. We only sent out four invitations, which represented 15 children, plus their parents. My family brought the grand total to 18 kids and 7 adults. I used pirate font and wording of course. Then they were stained, oven-dried, and burned around the edges to look authentic, then rolled into scrolls, tied with string, and mailed. I was actually going to mail them in bottles filled with sand and shells, but I knew the kids receiving them would wind up fighting over it so for the sake of peace I opted to mail them the boring way-in an envelope.
After getting an exact headcount (with a party this size exactness matters) I got to work finding treasure and loot. I had quite a pile building up in a corner, and more kept arriving almost daily from my eBay purchases. I thought I was going to have a much harder time keeping the kids out of the loot, but really it wasn't that bad. I had many lists going: food, props, decorations, games, and treasure. Lists were the only way I could keep everything straight.
Invitations...check! Moving on to.........
Decorations:
I had no trouble finding decorations; between online deals and going to the dollar and thrift stores I found plenty of loot. I found a huge Jolly Roger flag online for $3. I checked out the dollar stores and found a few things like chocolate gold coins and skeletons. I bought a few items from Wal-Mart such as candy, black plates and cups to have as extra in case the special POTC supplies ran out, and another skeleton. The thrift stores provided a treasure chest. Since my son's birthday is two weeks before Halloween I had no trouble finding pirate-y things for our party. I simply dressed the skeletons as pirates using hats and eye patches we already had. I also used Halloween decorations that we already owned and made them fit the pirate theme. I saw some cute plastic signs at the party store, but I chose to make my own to save money, plus I really thought it looked more authentic to do it my way. I used the same stain, dry, burn technique that I used for the invitations and made many signs: "Galley" which hung in the kitchen, "head" which adorned the bathroom door, "Property protected by pirates" for the entrance, "Captain's Quarters" for above Patrick's door, and of course-the ever popular "Dead Men Tell No Tales". I also made a "Code of Conduct" for the outside, which were rules for the pirates' behavior (included "no whining" and "no hitting"). I used the Pieces of Eight font for nearly everything, which is a free download, and it is the closest to the actual POTC font that you can find.
Tip #3: Use anything you can as a decoration. Borrowing toys from your kids' rooms that fit your theme and using them for the party doesn't cost a thing, but adds a lot.
Props/Decorations Con't:
My hubby works retail so I put him in charge of cardboard. Yes, cardboard duty. He brought home any large boxes or sheets of cardboard and started a pile in our carport for me to work with. I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to do with it, but I knew I would come up with something. ;)
One piece he salvaged was the backdrop for a cookie display and looked like a wooden fence. I thought it would be perfect for this:
BEFORE: AFTER:
(The finished prop looked exactly like this,
except the empty noose was behind the sign and a clue was taped to the back of the sign. The paper in the background on the left is the "Pirata Codex".) And yes, those are actual hangman's nooses-I found a cool knot-tying website with videos and now I am a professional noose-tier. Not sure what I'm to do with this talent?
I had another piece that was divided into three sections-perfect for a stockade. We nailed the finished prop to fence posts outside:
I had several small boxes which I spray painted black. These were part of the decor as well as functional:
The tattoo parlor was all ready to go (except the water). This helped the party flow from one activity to the next without a lot of stopping, chaos, or too much work for me.
I had another box for accessories in case anyone showed up in need of pirate gear:
I came across a craft for a Halloween decoration from FamilyFun.com, and
then used the directions (see "Crafts" post for link) posted on a blog since it had illustrations.
Here's Mr. Bones:
Tip #4: Don't stress over how everything looks. Kids don't care about perfection; they care about awesomeness. If your Mr. Bones looks like recycling gone bad, who cares!
My biggest undertaking was the pirate ship. I used a dishwasher box, plus three miscellaneous sheets, and two rolls of duct tape and constructed a ship. I spray painted it black and brown. To be honest, I was worried my own little swashbucklers would mutiny and sink it before the party guests got to even see it, so I purposely waited to construct it until they were asleep on Saturday night. I stayed up until midnight, but it paid off because three weeks later it is still standing on our back porch and being played in. :)
Decorations and loot taken care of, now time for...:
Food:
Since our party started at 2 pm and had no ending time I wanted a meal, not just snacks. I made sure everything I served fit the theme, and to really drive the point home I printed out labels on white stickers and stuck them onto black construction paper for each food item (this also counts as a decoration):
drinks = "grog"
deviled eggs = "cackle fruit" (what real pirates referred to eggs as)
chips and dip = "bone chips and guts"
chili & rice = "salmagundi" (a pirate food made from a hodgepodge of ingredients)
spinach dip = "seaweed"
the ice cubes = "alligator blood"
the cake = "just cake"
cookies = really should be in the "decorations" category
Every party needs...
Games:
I wanted to use all of the props for the games to ensure that they were utilized.
Originally I was going to have three or four games and then do the pinata and head to the cake. But then I realized that a pirate party would not be right without a treasure hunt and there was just no way out of it. So I used the games as a way to give clues.
I had a black box for the games (which sat next to the other black box props until game time) so that when it came time to play them everything was organized. Each game was in a plastic bag and numbered, and included the corresponding clue, prizes, and any props needed so all I had to do was grab bag #1, #2, etc. With 18 kids I did not want to stop, think, get supplies, and so on.
Tip #5: Make sure your games are 100% ready to go and organized before the guests arrive. You don't want to be scrambling whilst you have a bunch of kids going nuts at your home.
Game #1 : Davy Jones' Locker
This is a take on Sharks and Minnows. The biggest kid volunteered to be Davy Jones and all the pirates ran from one side of the yard to the other when I yelled, "Abandon Ship!" Whomever was tagged by Davy Jones was "out" and received a dum-dum lollipop as a prize. The last pirate in the game was declared the winner and was rewarded a lollipop and the first clue which said, "It's a pirate's life for me. Look for a sign under a tree." The clue led them to the "Pirates Ye Be Warned" display and attached to the back of the sign was a piece of the map.
Game #2: Cannonball Stomp
I had the hardest time finding black balloons which I honestly did not anticipate since it was so close to Halloween. So I opted for dark green water grenades instead, which worked out since they really did look like grenades. Let me tell you it was extremely hard to blow those suckers up and get the treats inside. I originally planned on making 1/2 empty, 1/2 with a pirate coin, and one with the clue. But instead because it was so difficult to get the coins inside, I ended up with about 5 with coins, one with the clue, and the rest stayed empty. This game was hysterical-18 kids stomping balloons. It was over very quickly and a few of the kids got upset that they didn't get to stomp any balloons. For the record-there were 35 "cannonballs". The winning pirate whom stomped the balloon containing the clue read, "Beware! If yer enemies catch ye, you'll wind up THERE." This brought the pirates to the stockade, which they had to search. The piece of map was hidden between the cardboard and the wood.
Game #3: Gold Nugget Hunt
This was basically an Easter egg hunt with gold nuggets substituted for eggs. In the days prior to the party Luke helped me walk around and find rocks which we rinsed, laid in the sun to dry, and then spray painted gold. I had a section of my yard closed off during the party so the children wouldn't venture into it and discover the gold. I hid the nuggets the morning of the party (after the dew dried) so I wouldn't be frantically trying to hide them during the festivities. The losers got ring pops and the pirate with the most gold chunks won the clue which read, "They say milk does a body good. Look for a skeleton by some wood." This of course led them to the milk jug skeleton and the piece of map was hidden in one of the cavities of Mr. Bones.
Game #4: Pass the Parrot
This is Hot Potato using a parrot. (My beloved parrot from my childhood, but that is another blog post...) The same older child who was Davy Jones was the music controller. He paused a song from the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack randomly until the winner was declared. The non-winners received an eye patch, and the winner got the final clue which said, "This is a place where you jump. Search all around for a lump." The last piece of map was discretely taped to a railing of the trampoline. I of course had it planned out that the last piece to be found was the part that contained the exact location of the treasure. The map was drawn on a crumpled paper bag and ripped into four sections. On the final quarter it said, "To find your reward look under an orange gourd", and naturally an "X" marked the spot. It was pretty warm out and I tried to get the kids to take a drink break halfway through the games, but very cutely they all refused-they wanted to finish the treasure hunt! I had the treasure chest pinata hidden on our front porch under a Halloween pumpkin. (Another mommy placed it during game #3 since there was chocolate inside which would have melted.)
We hung up the pinata, and as the children lined up to take their turns swinging at it I handed out the loot bags so they had somewhere to put their pinata goodies. The bags were store bought POTC, but I personalized them by sticking printed labels on the back of each bag that said "Hands Off! This booty is the sole property of ....". Each child had a cool pirate name-for example we had Captain Patrick (birthday boy), Coldblood Max, and Longtooth Maggie. I put telescopes, chocolate coins, stickers, pencils, and bookmarks inside (all store bought). The kids finally busted it open, and all the loot disappeared so quickly. I had many beaded necklaces, some bracelets, LOTS and LOTS of candy, pirate rings, and gold coins and medallions inside the chest.
After the pinata excitement we headed inside for cake. I found many options for cakes online (ships, treasure chests, skulls, you name it), but I love Publix cake so we ordered ours. Had I chosen to make the cake I am not sure which I would have chosen; they were all really neat. I would have had to allow time for that, and I had too many other things to do....
I had one more surprise for the pirates: Alligator blood to prevent scurvy. I brought out two 2-liters of lemon-lime soda and everyone had their cups ready. Then I pulled a black bowl full of red ice cubes. But not just any ice: I found a silicone mold for skeleton head ice cubes in the Halloween section of Wal-Mart. I started on Saturday and had a system worked out very quickly-it took 2 1/2 hours for them to freeze so every 2 1/2 hours I popped the 15 heads into the bowl in the freezer and filled the tray again with Hawaiian Punch. Yes, even through the night. By party time I had the bowl filled.
I already owned the soundtracks to the POTC movies (parts 1 & 3) and I also own the special 40th Anniversary cd that Disney released in honor of the attraction. I burned a cd of just the music from that (excluding the talking and narration), and had all three soundtracks on loop for the duration of the party. Since there was so much music it never seemed repetitive (to me). Our backyard was so much fun transformed into pirate theme that it was painful to it back to normal again. In the photo you can see the stockade on the far right, the hanging pirates in the far center, and Mr. Bones was very far to the left (not pictured). The pinata was hidden in the front of the house, and busted open in the carport.
Tip #6: Hand over your camera to another parent and request photos of the birthday celebrant, decorations, activities, etc. I suggest taking photos of everything set up BEFORE guests arrive-you will not get a chance to afterwards! You want to remember how your hard work turned out. I will never forget to do this again; lesson learned the hard way!
I had a blast planning this party even though it was a lot of time and work. I am going to do another for my daughter next Summer. I think I will start the planning right after New Years.........
