How to Plan a Children's Pirate Party

With the success of Disney's wildly popular Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, many of the children at our school are clamoring for pirate parties. Creating your own Smugglers Cove pirate party is not at all difficult; with party supplies stores now carrying all sorts of pirate props and decorations, the job of turning your home into Treasure Island is easier than you think!

Invitations

The best invitations are the ones you can make at home! For pirate party invitations, handwrite the invites on a crumbled piece of craft paper that have had the edges seared with a candle. The paper can be either rolled up and tied with a bit of string, or placed into an empty water bottle, like a message in a bottle. Include the place, time, date and a RSVP number and the words "Dress like a pirate!" Pirate dress is pretty simple ~ cuffed pants, sandels, striped shirt, and a bandanna over the head will work.

Creating the Pirate Cave

Pirates seemed to hold lots of their secret pirate meetings in dark caverns. The garage is the perfect location for a Smugglers Cave ~ just push everything to the sides and drape it all with black visqueen. The bumps and folds of the visqueen draped over your yard equipment and storage items will look like the walls of a dark cave, especially when the lights are turned low. Don't have a garage? The patio is also an ideal location. Simply hang sheets of black visqueen from all three edges of the patio cover to create a dark cavern.

Once you have the basic structure of the pirates cave, the next step is to add a few scary pirate props. Fishing net is an inexpensive accessory that can be draped from the walls. To make things look a little more interesting, tangle up swords, scabbards and bones within the netting.