For my daughters' 6th Birtday we held a pirate treasure hunt. Invitations:
good quality paper (parchment if you can), printed invitation on one side with all the "Har, matey, beware, if you dares', etc", then took a spritzer bottle filled with strong instant tea, sprayed on invitation and then ironed dry to give it an aged look. took the handful and set a match to the corners for even more distressing. rolled up and tied with twine. most were handed out at school, those mailed fit in legal envelope with the tea treatment applied. cakes: ship/ take 2 round cakes, cut in half. on rounded sides, cut off a bit so they may stand upright without rolling (these are the hull of the ship) icing between layers makes them heavy so they won't topple.( 4 cakes, side by side, rounded side on bottom, cut side is the deck) frost ship with chocolate icing (a metal spatula gives them wood plank appearence) used chocolate graham sticks for deck rail and gangplank. 2 skewers as the masts w/flags son had a cannon but we started out w/one we fashioned out of black electrical tape candy store has whoppers(cannon balls)and candy root beer kegs pirate face/ 2 round cakes, one will be the face, determine top of head, take a little cake off the sides to form cheeks and chin (some of second cake to be wasted) cake 2 cut in 3 pieces 2 pieces to form kercheif at chin one piece to place at top of pirate head (angled at side)for knot in skull cap small piece of cake to be formed into nose used white icing, just tinted as I went along, flesh color, blue/black/white for eye, red for lips, red for skull cap, blue for neck kerchief used an oreo for an eyepatch black licorice for hair and chin stubble (or crumbled oreo does well) dotted kerchief and skullcap with mini jawbreakers decorations: bought a beautiful pirateship kite ($10) from Sam's for centerpiece, hung from ceiling draped fishnet from ceiling, borrowed a plastic ornamental yard skeleton and electronic talking parrot on cake table had goblets filled with colored gems, sticky eyeballs, gold/chocolate coins, whoppers party favors: bought black craft foam and black elastic for eyepatch (holepunch) bought several yards of clearenced fabric, boys/girls colors for skull caps, black poster board for hats (used long john silver hats as template) craft: made parrots with empty toilet paper tubes and colored constuction paper had a face with beak, 2 wings, 1 tail, 2 feet and one rectangle all on one sheet of paper, copied this on to all the colored pages and cut them out the kids just had to choose what colors they wanted each part to be they used glitter pens, etc to decorate then glued on the body parts (the rectangle is used to cover the toilet paper roll and goes on first. games: fishing/used a blue sheet to conceal open door way and family member stood behind sheet to tug on pole, used a clothespin, to make it last longer, usually sent over shoes, socks, before sending over bagged gummy sharks pin the tail on parrot/ self explanatory, gave candy prizes Had a standing mirror so kids could look at themselves dressed up Topped it off with a treasure hunt. took lots of paper and planning. they can't read well so all hints are drawn. broke kids up into groups. they all had the same map, just different colors. Had them going to the same yard landmarks. Had 6 different spots I'd picked out, and left a colored map at each one. Maps had each group going to different spots around yard retreiving their colored map for the next clue, all ending up at the same spot with the treasure used an old trunk we had made swords out of card board (didn't hold up well, but not dangerous) and also had candy necklaces, rings Used the skull caps as carry home bags not too expensive if you plan well
