Penny Pinching Pirate Party!!!

So as you all know now, we are adopting! And since we have a $22-28 thousand dollar adoption bill in the next few months, we are saving all the money we can. Both Matt and I have always been pretty frugal, but I just LOVE the way this party went and HAD to share with you what we did to keep the budget LOW but the FUN high!

The first thing I had to do (much to my anxiety and dismay) was limit the number of guests. I allowed Noah to choose 5 friends to invite and we only invited those five friends and their families. It was hard for me because I am probably the ULTIMATE extrovert, combined with a passion for hospitality and an extreme concern for relationships and feelings within those relationships...so who do you leave out!?!? Noah chose his friends Brilei, Evan, Landon, Micah, Ty, who came with their siblings Presslei, Lydia, Bella, and Nasyra.


Of course I visited everyone's favorite crafty/party ideas site for hints- my pinterest account!

I found game ideas, food ideas, even free pirate party printables from poofycheeks blog.

For food we had:

Peg Legs aka Corndogs- $10

Boat Sails and Seaweed Salad (Chicken Satay Pasta)- $5

Dry Bones: Pretzel Sticks- $2

Dead Men Fingers, actually Sweet Potato Fries- $2

Balled Watermelon and grapes posed as Cannon Balls- $5

Treasure Map Birthday Cake- $6

Cousin Love

Fair Lady Nasyra and Cap'n Micah

Pirates enjoying the grub

We also had Pirates Grog to drink which had gummy worms frozen in lemon-lime sports drink floating in the rest of the punch!- $6

The first Pirate-y activity we did was getting our pirates some facial hair and/or scars, bandanas and eye patches. This activity cost about $3- black face paint and q-tips, $1 for 2 bandana packs at the dollar store and $5 for 6 eye patches at the party store. Total for this was about $19

The next activity w did was Walk The Plank. We had all the items we needed. We thought putting the board across the little pool added to the fun of the plank. Cost- $0

The birthday boy and his brother went first...there is nothing Noah does that Foster isn't right on his heels trying to do it too!

The Pirate Parents were also made to walk the plank...our costumes were from being the Flintstones for Halloween! Isn't it great to get to use them again?

Cute lil' Pirates in training

Presslei came as a Pirate Princess

Next was the treasure hunt

The treasure hunt was done with clues written on packing paper. The first clue was "delivered" by a pirate. The other clues had been hidden in the rooms. The treasure hunt took the kids inside and outside of our house.

The clues were as follows:
1st-
Land Blubbers, Ho!
A treasure Ye must find
Ye next clue is nearabouts where
We seafarers keep the vaccuum
Good luck and remember:
Dead Men Tell No Tales!

2nd-
The next clue
is not ye far
look where ye landblubbers
parks ye car...

3rd-
T' next spot ye should look
is where Pirates might like t' cook...
if Pirates did like like anythin'
besides finding ye treasure

4th-
Ahoy!!!
Ye be now wit' the toys!

5th-
Sorry Cap'n
This map got some scorch
(we burned a hole in the middle)
Ye treasure ye will find
on the porch...

At the end of the hunt this is what the kids found:

I made the treasure box out of a small cardboard box. For the lid, I cut one panel off and attached it to the other with tape. It gave the lid the rounded look. I put a graham cracker box in the bottom so the box would look full. I covered the box in packing paper. We gathered all the Mardi Gras beads from the house and candy that we got two weekends before at Easter. We also put $6 worth of change in. The plastic coins were 100/$6 and I was not going to pay that much money for fake money, so we used real coins instead. I put coins both in the box and out. The kids attacked this treasure box!

Pillaging the Treasure Chest

The entire Pirate-y crew!

The entire cost for this party was $55. That fed 25 people and includes party favors. I think it was a huge hit with the kids and we had a great time!