Ahoy Me Hearty! A Pirate Party!

It's been a long time coming since BJ first told me he wanted a pirate ship cake for his birthday!  About 5 months I expect it was!  So I had plenty of time to prepare!  

We started with invitations!  What could be better than a message in a bottle?  These went down well with the kids that received them I believe.  (for the ones that "got it" at least!)  

The party was Sunday.  Saturday was spent baking & making & whatever else that I couldn't do any earlier!  Brother Chris & sister-in-law Lex were here for the occasion!  That was a special treat for BJ.  It was nice of them to arrange their world wide travel & work schedules to fit around BJ's birthday!  While Stuart & I was busy working on a cake we set them to work working on the "tablecloth"!   Say "cheese" Chris & Lex!  

I was gob smacked when they left & I actually had a chance later to actually look at it in detail!  I was a bit sad about it being trashed by food!  I wanted to hang it on the wall!  Of course this table thing was purely for my benefit as the kids couldn't see through the plates of food to fully appreciate the creativity underneath!  lol  BJ was pointing all the interesting things on there too, like the whale tail!  (bottom left corner of pic!).  Anyway that was pretty cool for a chunk of brown paper that I have had a roll of forever!

I also had this idea last week to paint our toy box.  It spent about 15 years as our lounge room coffee table & storage box but since we moved here it became a toy box.   So why not decorate it!   So BJ & dad painted it brown last week.  (along with half the garage!)  On Saturday Stu added some gold edges & banding to make it look all treasure chest like!  Very cool!  BJ was suitably impressed.   Once he went to bed on Saturday night we put it in the lounge & actually put his presents in it.  So Sunday morning he was quite impressed with the box & even more so when the treasure inside was revealed!  That was a really cool idea I think!  It certainly was a hit with BJ!  

After the present opening we actually turned it into a lucky dip treasure chest.  We had stuffed some shopping bags with paper to fill them out a bit.  Filled the box with those.  I had wrapped a bunch of little lolly gifts & tossed them in there.  The bags of gold chocolate coins were at the bottom.  So the kids each took turns at the lucky dip to dig for treasure.  I had little plastic pirate loot bags that BJ's grandma had bought for us for his party & the kids used those to put their lolly loot in.  (didn't want to put them in the other one with the soap thing cos they would smell like soap!)  They had fun with that.  It wasn't too hard for them & one mum actually said it was good that they had to early their lolly party bags.  I guess it is!  Fun way to go about it anyway.  

Like last years party I also covered the juice bottles.  I found these stickers with a 3D sort of effect so they were perfect!  It's a good way for the kids to identify which one is theirs.  Oh yes & there are pink covered ones.  BJ is having a pink moment where he likes pink.  He wanted his bottle in pink.  Who am I to argue with a birthday pirate!

Having had plenty of time to prepare I didn't have to actively go out & hunt for things.  They just appeared at random times & I bought them when I saw them.  I had this pirate fabric for ages left over so I made some loot bags for the kids & had found the pirate figurine in the packet first.  Then the kaleidoscope which was the most perfect covered thing I ever saw, & would could be better than a pirate telescope?  Also a pirate bath shower gel & some stickers.  Perfect home time thank you gift for the guests from BJ.  They were all suitably impressed I think particularly with the telescope as most of them hadn't seen them before in their kaleidoscope form!

The star of the party of course has to be a cake!  Birthday cake pressure!  Ekkkk!  But we had fun!  I am not a cake icer.  Once again that job got left to Stu.  He did good.  But between us we collaborated on the shape, cutting the cake up in the first place is high pressure!  lol   I think the Women's Weekly cake book has a version of a ship that uses Curly wurly as railing & lifesavers as portholes.  Well that was what I ended up with for lack of anything better.  They worked well.  Also used mini yellow m&ms for gold treasure on the ship & island.  Chocolate sultanas as cannonballs.  I had to add the island last thing on Sunday morning as we didn't want to set the sails on fire with candles.  lol  The sails are my favourite bit.  Really nice thick scrapbook paper worked perfect.   Plus I had the masts which are extra long lollipop sticks!  The sharks in the jelly water are chocolates which really make it too!  lol  The pirate at the back is one out of one of the figure packs like the one in the loot bags.  

Here is one happy (but grimace like smile) boy with his cake before it got ruined!

So now my big little boy is 4!  Phew!  How did that happen!

At least when DJ turns one in a few weeks he has no expectations!  Have a good week & Happy Birthday Liz!  Thanks for the holiday today!