A Pirate's Birthday Party

Ask everyone to come wearing striped t-shirts and raggedy pants. Set up a wading pool in front of the door with step stools one inside the door and one on the opposite side, have a plank across them so it goes over the wading pool then the kids will have to "Walk the plank" to get into the party. Put all of your house plants at one end of the room to give it a jungle feel with an open trunk in the middle to pile all the booty (gifts) in. You can also artfully add a Jolly Rodger, a plastic skull and/or a toy parrot.

Pass out pirate hats and strips of red cloth for the guests to wear as sashes. To make the sashes just buy a length of red coat lining fabric measure 8 inches in length per child and cut into strips.

Use the treasure maps for the treasure hunt for place mats.

To make the treasure maps soak individual sheets of paper in coffee, or tea,and hang dry. Draw the maps on the coffee stained paper and the slightly burn the edges of the maps.

For food stuffs make everything that can be eaten with your bare hands a good idea is Cornish game hens that they can rip apart by hand and nibble on, a small loaf of bread they can rip pieces off of, and french fries for the main dish, a bottle of sparkling apple cider at each place setting (no glasses) for their bottle of rum.(put rubber bands around the bottles to make them easy to grip) or Walmart also sells a fruit flavored drink that comes in barrel shaped plastic bottles.

Desert can be blue jello in clear plastic cups put gummi fish and gummi sharks in the jello before it sets all the way.

The cake can be a large flat sheet cake with blue frosting and a toy ship in the middle of it.

Games can be Blind Mans Bluff, Capture the Flag, Red Rover Red Rover, Simon Says (but say "the Cap'n says"), Follow the Leader and a Treasure Hunt for the treasure hunt write the clues on paper then roll them up and stuff one end in bottles. Pass the Canon Ball (for this fill black balloons up with water and have them play catch with them, but with each toss they have to take one step back). They can also have a canon ball (water balloon) fight.For something quiet to do they can color in a Jolly Rodger or a parrot coloring sheet.

Goody bags can include paperback copies of "Kidnapped", toy telescopes, kaleidoscopes, toy boats, gold foil wrapped chocolate coins, candy necklaces, candy bracelets, candy rings, plastic toy eye patches and bandanas