This was a party for my 4 year old son who is into everything pirate! I started out by making invitations out of homemade paper folded in half with a picture of a ship or a pirate with burned edges glued in the center. On the inside it said "Ahoy Matey! Capt'n Zach is Havin' a Bloomin' Pirate Party! Chart Yer Course for Zach's house (the date and time).  See Ya There! Aarrgghh! If ye Dare!! " Parents got a kick out of these.  I hung a plastic life sized skeleton from Halloween on the front door with a sign that said "Enter - If Ye Dare". All the adults got pirate name tags - white square stickers with a swashbuckle outline - Treasure Totin' Trudy, or Gator Grubbin' Gary... The kids arrived and they decorated "treasure chests" - jewelery boxes from oriental trading company that I had spray painted gold - with glitter and plastic jewels (came with boxes).  Then we started the transformation!  The kids were told that they "could become pirates...but it wasn't easy!" They had to make their way over the Bridge Over Troubled Water (one piece plastic 2 seater picnic table). I place all the plastic whales, fish, crabs, sharks I could find of my sons under and around the bridge. When a child went over the bridge he earned a mustache (Halloween make-up) and a plastic compass and sword clipped to his/her pants.  They had to Find the Loot by digging through a big bucket full of styrofoam peanuts for small foil wrapped blocks.  When they found 5 they were given a beard (burned cork on chin and jaw)and paper pirate hat (a deal found on ebay but these can be made). They had to Throw their Loot into the Treasure Chest - I wrapped up a cardboard shaped treasure chest from a dress-up set of my daughters in foil, placed it on the coffee table covered with a string net, gold coins and skeleton keys placed around, and had them throw old gold colored bangle bracelets into the chest to earn an eye patch (made with stiff black felt and elastic) and a Mardi Gras necklace, color of their choice, already hanging out of the chest. Last, they had to Walk The Plank as they were told sometimes pirates had to do if they were caught stealing the loot! We made a plank out of 2x4's, and they earned their name tag - each one had a pirate name and they were excited to hear what it was! We then had a game of pin the eyepatch on Blackbeard - eyepatches were made from same black felt but no elastic and had the first initial of the child's name on each to tell who won. Winner was to lead the kids with the birthday boy down the basement for the treasure hunt.  The winner and my son got cardboard swords in foil to "fight off the other pirates and sharks". The basement had fish made from different colors of construction paper hanging from the ceiling with different colors and lengths of ribbon.  Very Cute. Each child was given a construction paper skeleton key shape of a different color and was told to find the loot bag with the same color paper key on it. Bags were gold tulle with ribbon and a real skeleton key (ebay) and their color paper key attached. Inside was gum coins, root beer barrels and gold and silver Hershey's nuggets. We had a cannonball pop which were black balloons with a slip of paper inside. If the paper had gold on it that child, with the birthday boy, got to pull down a load of balloons that were suspended from the ceiling by a huge net made from streamers. We had attached 2 "pulls" made of string that would essentially break apart the net. This was a cute decoration but the "pull" was not really worth the effort. In between activities my sister was taking a Polaroid of each child and filling their treasure chests with that and some gold colored shells and a big chocolate gold coin.  We then had birthday cake - just 1/4 sheet cake with blue frosting to look like water with the topper being a Lego raft with a couple pirates on it - very cute, and ice cream and punch. At each place setting there was a plastic telescope. Another helper put all acquired things into brown paper grocery bags cut off 2 inches from top, outlined in black marker and a black horizontal line 2 inches from new top with a keyhole just underneath and folded on horizontal line - each bag had large name of each child, i.e., "Zach's Loot" written on outside. It was time to go and since the invitees were neighbor kids and they all would walk home, I broke open a box of long breadsticks when they got outside and let them have a sword fight in the front yard - great after-sugar activity, and I wished I had bought 2 boxes. The children were boys and girls ages 3-8 and all had a great time! Many ideas were obtained from this site and there should be some ideas you can pull from this to make your party just as fun!