The Making of an Extraordinary Pirate Party

I’ll be sharing our pirate festivities in two parts.  The making of the pirate party, i.e. this post, and the actual the party, itself: The Swashbuckler Soiree.

As I mentioned in other party posts, we seriously obsess over our Summer Party all year.  I’m thinking I do this obsessive thing to distract myself from myself…but that’s a subject for a different post!

This year may have been the most obsessive we have been to date.

So much so, that I think we all sunk into a tiny depression when it was over this year. 

Party planning is such a fun way to occupy your down time by planning, scheming, building and crafting.  For many years I was the only “obsessor”, and over the years my sister, Mitchie and daughter, Chloe have been my teammates.  This year I had a huge team pitching-in and it made it an absolute blast.

A pirate theme is fun for absolutely every age. 

When Gavin was just a little guy…around 5 years old, I threw him a pirate and princesses party, (the princess part was added for Chloe and friends).  My favorite story from that party is that I set up a treasure hunt, (Of course…what pirate party is complete without one?)

The hunt started in the back yard and ended in the front yard.  The brave, tiny little pirates accompanied by the princesses, hunted diligently in our backyard for their treasure by following the pirate map and completing activities along the way.  They were donned in their eye patches, head scarves and swords, feeling very confident by the time they headed to the front yard where the map was leading them.

When they got to the front yard, there, in the middle of the lawn, they saw the giant treasure chest; the fantastic grand prize they had been hunting for. 

With the feeling of victory in their little bones, the team of little scurvy dogs dashed toward the treasure when all of the sudden an adult sized pirate who was guarding his buried treasure, (an uncle disguised as a pirate) jumped out from behind the tree. 

Without hesitation, baby Gavin charged at the pirate with his sword drawn, while most of the tiny treasure hunters hid and cried.  I’ve got to admit, the man-sized pirate was a tad overly scary and no one recognized that it was an uncle! I was quite surprised that baby Gavin engaged him in a very aggressive and vigorous sword fight.  Gav conquered that mean old pirate and saved the day for his pirate and princess friends. 

It couldn’t have gone any better for the birthday boy, feeling like a hero on his birthday.  The fun kicker to that story is that his best buddy, the little guy crying from sheer terror of that terrifying pirate, attended this adult pirate party, 20 something years later.  Gavin and Camron have remained friends all these years and it was such a blast to reunite in pirate form. I’ll also have you know that Camron has turned into a much braver pirate!

I couldn’t find a picture of that party but here’s a good pirate pic of Gavin and of Chloe when they were in Peter Pan! Chloe was Tiger Lily!

Aren’t they cute? Anyway…back to the subject!

Pirate party themes are multi-generationally satisfying! 

You’ll see evidence of that in pirate party post number 2, full of adult sized pirates, young adults and old-er-ish adults!

First  things first, I set the mood for this Soiree with a ridiculous invitation:

Avast Ye Sea Dogs and Wenches:

Gather yer buccaneers and git yer booty on over to thee

Swashbuckler Soirée.
We pirates shall be hunting for buried treasure until we’re

three sheets to the wind.
Bring your swimming rags if you’ll be slipping and sliding on the plank. 
Don’t be a freebooter. We shall provide side bounty and wieners.

Ye shall bring items for the grazing table.  Consult ye grazing table list and gather a few items ye shall bring to share so we don’t end up scarfing all the same PollyWannaCrackers. 
If yer a carouser, bring ye clap of thunder and grog so no one be shoutin’ “Why is all the Rum gone?”
Be clad in yer pirate swag or ye shall be marooned as a

son of a biscuit eater.
Bring practical boots for the treasure hunt.

Ye shall be in treacherous terrain.
Bring a folding chair if ye be planning to sit on your arse.
Don’t be a landlubber. Put some fire in the hole and git yer arse out of Davey Jones locker.

We’re battening down the hatches for a Hornswaggle Mutiny!

How’s that for announcing the most phenomenal party of all time? Now I just better live up to it. Nothing like building it up and having the party be a dud. The pressure was on!

The main event for this party was the treasure hunt. 

That may sound fairly simple to prepare but nooooo…it was a major undertaking.

I made the map by identifying locations around our 20 acres that would make the hunters search far and wide.  After all, this wasn’t a bunch of little kids.  This group required a challenge. 

I found an interesting picture of a map, used it as my inspiration and then brought out one of my favorite tools, my Procreate program to draw and customize it for my property.

I also used Procreate to create the rules and clues for the hunt.

The clues I made were hidden in cute pirate bootie bags which were made by my sister, Mitchie, and bottles spray painted gold by Chloe and me.

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It made it extra fun to use old script font so that it was difficult to read the clues!

Side note…each time a team found a clue they had to sing a pirate song so the other team could hear them.

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I also made labels for the captains bags, tickets for team picking, fake clues and other fun graphic stuff!

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Chloe and I, (and Charlie and Bailey, of course) spent countless hours driving around the property in our Gator fine tuning the plan for the hunt.  As we walked our first few dry runs, we decided we needed a few signs along the way to guide the hunters.  Chloe made the signs out of cardboard, spray paint and wooden stakes.

We planned to place these signs a few days before the party because it was a tad time consuming.  As we watched the weather, it appeared it would rain on the days before, during and after the party…ugh!  It’s August…what’s going on here, Oregon?

After placing the signs, we ended up spending a few hours going around to all the signs again and covering them in plastic trash bags so the cardboard didn’t get ruined! Good Times!

At each clue location we either placed the clue in a gold bottle and threw it in one of our ponds or we placed the clues in bags and hung them in trees.  There were a few boobie-traps along the way, fake clues and riddles and cryptograms to solve.  At the end of the hunt there was a skeleton hung high in a tree with a clue tied to each hand. They had to get the skeleton out of the tree, read the clue which led them to Dead Man’s Ditch where there was a key buried in the ditch filled with sand.  Once the team had the key, they got to claim the treasure chest..

Chloe and I unloaded a half ton of sand by ourselves.

Girl Power!

It doesn’t look like much but I’m here to tell you, sand is heavy!

Besides the hunt, the decorations were a big hit. 

The two stand-outs were the pirate mast on the deck and, best of all, Nate made a pirate ship out of my mom’s wheelchair.  You might recall from other posts that these summer parties started out being parties for my mom.  She passed away last July and Nate thought of the great idea of including her by making her wheelchair the highlight of the party.  He blew our minds with his creation!

The Pirate mast, made out of bed sheets, looked pretty cool

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And here is the incredible, one-of-a-kind, work of art made by Nate:

Anita’s Pearl! 

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It was everything.  Adorable, super cool, a sentimental tear jerker…all the things. 

On the next post, you’ll see her in action! She was quite the star of the party!

Chloe and I set up our old horse stalls as Ye Old Bunghole Bar and Mermaid Lounge.  Now, before you all think I’m being naughty…here is the definition of a bunghole:

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I hung this sign, above, in the barn because everyone thought the same thing you were thinking!

So there…get your mind out of the gutter!

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The setting up of this area was a major undertaking, as well.  We stapled fabric to the walls, hung lanterns, added a bar and small refrigerators and brought our little row boat out of the pond to use as a giant ice chest for the beer.

I printed pictures of pirates from the internet and framed them like real pictures to add the finishing touches.  I also used my Cricut machine to make name tags and hung a Pirate name chart so that people could find their “Pirate Name”.

We started off the pirate hunt in Ye Old Bunghole Bar and Mermaid Lounge and it ended up being the favorite hang-out spot of the night. 

We did our usual hanging of banners across the lawn.  We repurposed last year’s Rubber Ducky Regatta banner and updated it by adding some black fabric to add a pirate touch. 

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We filled the yard with furniture and set up the slip n slide.  We were going to slip n slide come rain or shine!  As it turns out, the rain started in the middle of the slip n slide festivities, after the treasure hunt!

In my opinion, the costumes were the best decoration of all!  Having your guests dress up is an absolute blast.  Over the years, my party friends have learned that you don’t show up to a party of mine without going full out costume crazy.  Absolutely everyone dressed up this year and even the usual costume, half-assers…like my sweet hubby, Dave, looked pretty darn cool this year!

We made pirate hats 

I’m going to show you how because it’s super easy to go from this:

To this:

But, the making of a pirate hat will be in another post!

Meanwhile, there is food to be organized. 

We did a simple menu of hot dogs and sides this year but we also organized a grazing table that the guests all contributed to.  I love this.  I always like to take something to a party and a grazing table makes for an incredible mix of snacks so that there is something for everyone and it makes everyone feel involved in the fun. 

I made cute little food tags with my Cricut.

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And, even though people brought lots of good food…there’s still that Costco run that leaves you shell-shocked!

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Mitchie and I always go crazy and make way too many desserts.  This year we had peanut butter pie, carrot cupcakes, rum cupcakes and meringues in every magical shape and size we could think of. 

We even made some cute seashell and sea creature candies for the tops of the cupcakes out of melted jolly ranchers!

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To pull the whole production together, we created an apple playlist full of pirate music mixed in with some Irish jigs and 70’s rock.

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As I always say, the very best part of parties is the family togetherness and team work.

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Enough already with the pirate craziness …it’s time to prepare for our October Party:  The gathering of the Witches Coven!

If you’d like to see Chloe and I slumming it in party prep chaos, check out her YouTube story.

See my next post: Ye Old Swashbuckler Soiree for pictures and stories of the actual party. It was a Hornswaggle Mutiny!

Lots of love, my friends! xoxo