Last year (a long time ago in toddler time), Rocco was really into Jake and the Neverland Pirates. That's when I decided that our next birthday party theme was going to be a pirate theme. I didn't want the party to be a Jake and the Neverland Pirates party but rather a pirate party with "special guests" Jake and the gang (in cookie form). Was my kid still into pirates six months later? Not really. But he had fun anyway.
I printed out my free pirate invitations from HP.com which you can get here. I had to Photoshop it a bit to enter in the party information but no big deal because they were free! I bought black envelopes from Paper Source and stamped them with their pirate skull stamp which I then heat embossed with a gold glitter embossing powder.
As usual, I had a vision and planned months ahead. I had high hopes and big plans but somehow we still had to cut out a few ideas, still missed a few details, and still had to do a ton of last minute stuff.
One of the things I really wanted to do was make Skully cake pops (Skully is the parrot from Jake and the Neverland Pirates). I had only made cake pops once before and it was pretty much a disaster but I wanted to give it another shot and had the entire process planned out in my head. I even planned to do a tutorial on it which I never do either! But, of course I ran out of time and decided to stick to what I know and just do cookies.
Here are the Skully and Jake cookies below. Can you tell what's missing on Skully? Alright, I'll tell you - the skulls on his bandana!! I was actually fine with Skully being skull-less. I'm not sure if anyone at our party even knew about Jake and the Neverland Pirates so I doubt that anyone even noticed. Some people probably thought the Jake cookie was supposed to be Rocco.
The Captain Hook cookies came out pretty well - I was a little worried about his nose and mouth not looking right but the edible ink marker worked out well for him.
Our pirate ship table was modeled after a table I found on Amy Atlas' site. You can see the original ship table here.
I found some cool apothecary style bottles from euroglassware.com and doctored up some labels I found online to say "Scurvy Begone", "Yellow Fever", and "Sea Sickness Pills". They were filled with jelly beans.
We did somewhat of a treasure hunt (the kids were only three after all).
First, the kids were supposed to find the mermaid, who got her makeup done at the Nordstrom MAC counter. And yes, she does have scales on the side of her head.
Then, the kids had to play pin the flag on the X
Next, the kids were to go to "Turtle Island" to find their treasure maps. I saved up Izzy bottles and filled them with tiny seashells and sand and put another version of the map from the invitation in there. I easily cleaned the goo from the labels off of the bottles by using a steel wool pad. I bought #7 sized corks for beer/soda bottles but they didn't quite fit so I had to hold them in with small, round cork surface protectors.
And that's Gilligan, our tortoise. People ask ALL THE TIME but we don't know how old he is.
Then the kids went off to "Pier 3" to take a ride on our pirate ship wagon. You can see that the wagon is missing its sails. Yep, I was not happy about that at all.
We bought black water balloons to throw as "canon balls"
After the pirate ship ride, the kids went off to walk the plank
They dug for some jewels and gold necklaces
And finally, they got their treasure chest favor boxes filled with Pirates Booty, gold coins, a ring pop, and some Jake and the Neverland Pirates tattoos.
My husband continued to work on the pirate ship wagon and this is how it looked a week after the party.
If you would like to purchase this magnificent "work of art" please feel free to make an offer!
