Aaargh!

(my friend made this cake! I am upset that I didn't get better pictures of it! She said she got the idea from Family Fun magazine.)

(knowing these were coming down soon, I didn't want to print them off on vinyl. so I just used regular construction paper)

(a bad lighting picture of the invite)

(the front door)

(the bigger flags were not as tedious!)

(balloons hanging from the ceiling fan)

(the cupcakes that went to class. The swords are a little hard to see but that is what the flag is attatched too)

(pirate banner flag surrounding the living room, there were also some outside the house)

My sweet little Ivan turned 5 last week! For the longest time, he had wanted to have an Indiana Jones party. I looked up ideas (thank you Google). But as I started looking at ordering things, I was bummed to find out that more than half of my ideas would not be shipped to Guam!

Frustrated I made a trip to our local BX and looked to see what they had in their birthday section. I then worked very hard to convince my son to have a pirate party instead! Luckily he agreed easily!

For Christmas this year, I got a Cricut by Provo Craft and I love it. In one of the cartridges that came with it, there are a few pirate-y images!

First thing I made was the invitations. I loved how they turned out. I made over 20 invitations. Then I realized that I didn't take a picture of one. So I quickly made one to take a picture of. But I was tired of making all those teeny tiny jolly rogers! The picture of the cupcakes has the flags that I made.

One way I try to save money is by not buying too many "theme" items. Instead of "Pirates of the Carribean" plates, I decided to just use red,black and white.So all the tableware (including tablecloths) were those colors. I also grabbed red, black and white streamers.

I ordered my goody bag items from Oriental Trading co. While they charged me an arm and a leg in shipping, it really helped with the theme! The goody bags included: bracelets with pirate sayings, bandanas, telescopes, pirate necklaces, gold coins, goldfish, a fish gummy candy, Swedish fish, pirate rings, and eye patches.The kids also went on a treasure hunt and found candy necklaces, ring pops and gold coins.

A friend made Ivan a FABULOUS pirate ship cake.

We had lots of balloons, jolly rogers etc. I also printed off "yo ho ho" and "aaargh" to go on the walls.

The day before his party, he brought chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting to his class. Each one had a jolly roger attatched to a sword toothpick and a gold coin. The tiny jolly rogers were all seperate pieces. So I was a tad frustrated as I was making 28 teeny tiny flags. My husband who was watching tv said, "You know those kids are just going to throw them away right? They wouldn't care if there was anything on top." Sigh. I loved the way they turned out though!

My husband teased me about going a little overboard. Normally we don't do this much for birthdays, but my little guy has never had a party before. Well not a friend party. That is why we went all out. He loved it and loves to wear his eye patch around! He wanted to keep the decorations up for "20 more days!"

Being on Guam, I am limited in the stores I have. But I think it turned out pretty well!

Just a few ideas, if you have a little scallywag who is interested in having a pirate party!