Make It A Pirate Party

So I just hosted my 3 year old's pirate birthday party. Here we are at Make It Monday, and I thought I'd share my tips for how to make a fun party without spending much moolah! As you know you can spend a gazillion dollars on a kid party--whether it's for family, friends, or students. In fact there is even a lot of marketing that says this is what "good" grownups are supposed to do. If it's what you want to do, that's one thing, but if it is a have to, forget it.

Here are some of my best cheap bits.

The menu:

We were going to buy subs and add sails to them, but instead we just made them. It was way less expensive than buying an oversized sub sandwich to serve the same number of people. We added sails from a ship to make it look more thematic!


Goldfish crackers! The birthday boy loved a variety of goldfish crackers, and who wouldn't?


There was also "Shells and Seaweed" pasta salad with spinach noodles and shell pasta.

Daddy made peanut butter cupcakes with a rolo in the middle. I made the little decorations with cheap stickers, frill picks, and index cards. I estimate that we made a decorated 30 cupcakes for less than the price of a half dozen from a cupcake bakery.



The decorations:

The centerpiece was an old chest filled with gold coins and a toy pirate ship covered with pirate finger puppets. We hung jolly roger penants all around the house. ($6 from oriental trading co. for all of it)





Also, because I'm a nerdy teacher, we set pirate picture books all around the house--from the library for free.

Here are some of my/our favorites:

• The Day I Became A Pirate
• Pirates Don't Do Diapers
• Louise, The Adventures Of A Chicken
• Gingerbread Pirates
• Archie And The Pirates

We also had pirate bandanas and eye patches for everyone. (Oriental Trading Co., too)

It wasn't fancy, but it was so fun. May you find fun in the party you host.

Here is the little pirate with his paternal grandparents:

and sword fighting with my dad:




Happy Birthday, Pirate Sam! You have brought so much joy into the past 3 years of my life. My heart is overflowing with love for you today!