Make Your Own Invitations for a Pirate Treasure Hunt

We broke these invitations into small steps on the to do timeline, so that when the time came to actually make them, we knew exactly what to do and it went quickly and easily.  

Toward the beginning of this party's timeline, we brainstormed pirate invites.  Around this time, Sarita was planning a treasure hunt as a summer activity for the girls, so we talked about making the invites look like a treasure map.

The next invitation to do came a few weeks later, when we planned out the invite.  Again, I only spent around 15 minutes on this.  I simply googled pirate invitations, saved some images and invitation wording that I liked, and sketched out a mock up in my party planning book.

A few weeks later, we gathered our supplies.  As I mentioned in that post, I like to use supplies I already have and solicit the rest from friends and family in an effort to help them declutter.  I'm a great friend!

Finally, it was time to make the invitations.  I usually break the actual invitation making step into 2 to do steps/nights, not including addressing and delivering them (that's it's own step).  The first night I created the invite using word.  This didn't take long because I had already brainstormed and planned how I wanted these to look and what wording I might use.  

I did run into a glitch that some of you might benefit from knowing about.  When I went to print, I realized that my laptop was set to print remotely to the office, so I needed to print it from my husband's computer.  When I pulled the word document up on his laptop, the font had changed because he had an older version of word.  He didn't have a similar font I liked, so I was stuck.

But, luckily for me, I am invincible and quickly came up with the brilliant plan to save the invite as a pdf using acrobat reader on my computer and THEN email it to the other laptop.  This may be completely old news to you techies, but for me, it opened up a whole new world of possibilities!  For those of you who are even less techno geek than me, Acrobat Reader can be downloaded for free and is probably already on your computer if you open a lot of downloads you get.  Many of them are saved in AR, and now I know why!

Because of this glitch, the first session took about 30 minutes, instead of 15.  Luckily, my sister was there to help tear and stamp the edges with me to help the process along.  While we printed and tore, we also tried to tea stain the invites as we had originally planned.  This too turned out to be a disaster when the wording started to run all over the page, so we ditched that idea and used a brown stamp all over to create the same effect without the mess.

The next week, we sealed the invites with our wax seal.  I never found a K or an A seal, and didn't want to purchase one just for the invitations, so we used a bead to seal them.  It turned out fine, unless you have a scary imagination- in which case the seal may appear a bit like a bloody thumb print.

No- it's NOT a bloody thumb print

This is a messy process: keep down paper and be careful not to burn yourself!  We ended up using an older wax seal to hold the bead for us, so we could stop burning the tips of out fingers off each time.

So, this week I am addressing them, and next week I will deliver.  With these kinds of invitations, I will hand deliver most.  A few will go to friends and family out of town, so I will carefully stuff them into envelopes to mail.  This is why I usually give myself one week to address them, and one week to actually mail them.  This gives me 30 minutes total to hand deliver or get to the post office.

The whole invitation process was 6 steps.  By breaking it into steps over several weeks, things go more smoothly.  If I had tried to do all this in one day, I would have gotten frustrated by all the things that went wrong and given up or been unhappy with the final project.  

Do yourself a favor- plan your parties in 15 minutes.

Make Your Own Temporary Tattoos

After attending a fun dinosaur party, Monkey has decided she MUST have tattoos at her pirate party.  As I mentioned yesterday, I am over-budget on favors, so I decided to google it.  Isn't google amazing??? Remember when we had to go to the card catalog to find things out?? Thank you, Al Gore!

Anyhoo...I googled make your own temporary tattoos and found this great how-to.  I will have to do some more research into how much the temporary tattoo paper will be, and look into Henna paints.  But this is definitely a good trick to keep in my party planning arsenal.  It could be adapted for so many parties!

Pirate Favors: Captain's Logs and DIY Pirate Patches

So...last week, I found some awesome pirate hats to use for favors.  They were on sale BOGO free, and on clearance to boot, so I got them for about $2.50 apiece (originally $19.99 apiece).  Not bad!  But..since my goal is $3 per favor, I am going to have to get creative with the other things...

To make matters trickier,  I found these adorable notebooks in the clearance bin at Michael's a couple of weeks ago and couldn't resist. I also found pirate foam stickers and used a 50% off coupon to get them for around $3. Those will double as decor and a way to personalize the notebooks.   I can throw the extra ones in the treasure chest as more loot. The books were a dollar apiece...which means...I am already over budget.

But considering how fun those hats are, and how cute these "Captain's Log" notebooks will be, I am ok with it.  The hat will serve as the container for the favors, and the inside of the notebooks will be a great place to stick my signature, "Thanks for coming to Monkey's 6th birthday party" labels.

And besides, 3 dollars was mighty ambitious anyway.  However, since we do tend to have a houseful of kids, I am going to try to make the rest of the favors with stuff we have.  AND to make it FUN, I plan to get the girls involved.  HINT: Since I am planning way ahead, I have plenty of time to get creative and go back to the drawing board without having to give up one some of my ideas or go way over budget.

So, I still need pirate eye patches.  And the ones Monkey picked out were almost $2 apiece.  What's a girl to do?  Google it, of course.  A quick "Make Your Own Pirate Eye Patches" brought up this awesome how-to. To make Monkey fall in love with these more than the ones see saw online, I plan to bring out the glitter paint and gems- what can girl resist that?

A true planner knows that half the fun is in planning all the details, and making these with my girls will be a great lead up to the party.

The moral of the story:  Plan ahead; plan well ahead.  But don't be afraid to veer from your plans when something serendipitous comes along.  And always leave a little wiggle room in the budget for those awesome finds you just can't pass up!

Make Your Own Invitations: Step One- Gather Your Supplies

On my to do list this week, for Monkey's party,  is gathering invite supplies.  Planning in 15 minutes means breaking projects into short to do items.  So...this week, all I have to do is make sure I have everything I need to make treasure map invitations, modeled after the treasure map Sara made for the girls' recent hunt.

When making invitations, I have two goals.  First, I like to make my own.  I like them to be unique and like no others.  Second, I like to use materials I already have around the house.

For my treasure map invites, I need to gather the following:

• white paper
• tea bags (for antiquing the paper)
• thick and thin black sharpies
• lighter for burning the edges
• sealing wax
• A or K seal

I don't have a seal, but I'm pretty sure someone I know does.  Since I have plenty of time to gather (I give myself 2 weeks to make invites, and the seal is the last step), I have time to send out emails to see if anyone already has one I can borrow.  And I know my mom has sealing wax because she's totally into that stuff.

See the beauty of doing things early, and a little at a time.  If all goes well, and I am certain it will, I'll find a seal and my invites with be made with me having to buy a thing!  What's more earth friendly and economical than that?

Now, who has a K or A seal? ;)

Cake Planning: Get the Kids Involved!

For Monkey's pirate party, she and Sarita sat down and sketched out what she wanted. Sarita and I have been plugging cake balls for Monkey's next birthday party in lieu of cake. The size is the perfect serving for a little one, and they require no plates and forks which makes them green. I do, however, find the name unfortunate, so let's call them cake bites.

Monkey wasn't feeling it, and to get her excited about it, Sarita pulled out a piece of paper and started sketching these fun pirate bites. As Sarita incorporated Monkey's designs (like different eye colors) the guest of honor began to get excited. She even pulled out paper and started sketching her own version of a bear cake for Squeaker's upcoming bear hunt party. I mean, she's 5, so her attention wandered a bit.

Of course, we will also make a sheet cake for the adult guests and so we will have leftovers to eat in the middle of the night-admit it, we all have another piece of cake after the guests leave. And some of us store it in the freezer for months and nibble a little here and there. You know who you are...

For the sheet cake, we will most likely use a Wilton cake pan. These are so easy to do. If you can use a star tip, you can make awesome cakes using any of their pans.

To make our tiny little cake bites stand out and command attention, we plan to stick them into a pirate ship. No decision yet as to whether they will go in the sheet cake pirate ship or possibly one made out of cardboard. Cakes are such an easy way to add festivity and to double as decor.

Not only are cake bites the perfect size, they are really easy to make. Check out this blog for an detailed how to.

This is what I mean by planning your parties in 15 minutes. Planning the cake was on my to do list for the week, so we sketched for 15 minutes and had fun with it. That's all it takes. Those little bursts of time and inspiration add up.

Try this at home! Sit down with the guest of honor for your next party and sketch something- decor, food, invites. It makes planning all the more fun!

Save Money on Favors by Planning Ahead: More Pirate Finds!

One of the perks of planning your parties in advance is that you have plenty of time for great deals to fall into your lap!

For Monkey's pirate party, I am on the look out for a cute pirate outfit for her, as well as favors for her guests.

If you don't know about Hip2Save, you should really put it in your arsenal of deal finders! In her daily deals email today, Collin listed a great clearance sale at Costume Express where I found this adorable pirate hat on clearance for $4.99, down from $19.99. These would make fun favors and would serve as perfect photo props at the party! These are already on clearance for $4.99, but with their BOGO sale, I can get them for $2.50 apiece!

Here's how to find the best deals on those sites. First, put in your search. In my case, "pirate." Then, find where the website asks how you want to sort: "Sort By:" and sort by low price. This will allow you to quickly search for any great deals, without having to look through dozens of pages.

Last week, the cheapest pirate costume I found for Monkey was 24.99, and it wasn't pink, which is a real problem in our house. Today, on this site, I found this adorable PINK PIRATE costume for $14.99. And with the BOGO, I can add one for Squeaker for free. Woo hoo!

See how easy it is when you plan ahead?

You try it! Think about Halloween costumes or the next birthday theme and check out the website above, or just google your theme + clearance. Let me know if you find anything awesome!

Brainstorming Party Favors For Pirates

When I start thinking of party favors, I have 3 goals to meet:

1. It should be something useful versus clutter
   
2. It should be as earth friendly as possible
   
3. It should still be fun and not too practical- this is the challenging part
   

So, today I'm brainstorming pirate party favors for Monkey's upcoming 6^th birthday party. We're going to have a treasure hunt as the main entertainment, and each child will have some loot in the chest upon digging it up. I want to have individually labeled favors in the chest, mainly because I'm not a fan of the free for all that occurs when little ones see a pile of goodies. We're going to be pretending to be pirates and all, but I don't want any looting and would prefer that no one lose an eye and actually need those cute eye patches they're getting.

To meet goal one, I try to think of things that all kids use and enjoy- and that doesn't include any tiny little plastic creatures or figures that I can never find a place for in the playroom. (My friend Julie has a box that I'm pretty sure is labeled something like, "Plastic trinkets that don't go anywhere else," which I think is ingenious but I'd still rather not go there). It can get tricky because I still want to follow my theme and not many kids that I know, thank goodness, actually need pirate gear. My sister orchestrated a treasure hunt not long ago with the girls and her loot was fantastic, so I plan to steal a couple of those ideas. She is awesome about respecting our families whole food, non-toxic, very little plastic, very little sugar lifestyle and she clearly put some time into coming up with some great pirate booty that meets all those criteria. Yes, she's amazing.

So first we'll have a captain's log. It will be a small journal the kids can write or draw in. It will have a label inside that will say something to the effect of, "Pirate captains use their log books to record things they observe (like good places to bury their treasures), want to remember (like where they buried their treasure), and people they meet (so they know who knows where the treasure is buried). To make it more whimsical and a reminder of Monkey's birthday party, I will probably have a picture of her dressed as a pirate on the label also. My two girls have been carrying their log books around and recording in them since digging them up, and being a former writing teacher, I love to watch them practice writing! Useful- check! Earth friendly- check! Especially since I plan to find ones made of recycled paper! Fun- check! My girls love having notebooks like Mommy's and these are going to be pirated and whimsical to boot.

Because pirates need certain attire to get into character, there will also be eye patches. I was thinking pink for the girls and red for the boys, Monkey wants white?!? ones, and Sarita (the sister) suggests black for all. Not sure who will win that battle. I want to have one more piece of pirate flair to adorn the kiddos, and I thought about pirate hooks or jewels but decided against both. First, the hooks are sure to reek of plastic fumes and are sure to become clutter and may actually take an eye out. Second, the jewels are likely only to be interesting to the girls and the younger boys (aka siblings) and I don't want to have to come up with a similar but equal counterpart to the jewelry for the boys. I found these really cute pirate bandanas that I thought would serve as a cute photo op when the kiddos have them on with their eye patches, and they will also solve the container issue. I plan to personalize them with the kiddos' names and use them to hold the rest of the loot inside the chest. That way, each kiddo will have their own package and I don't have to use bags that will be tossed in a landfill to contain the goodies. Talk about win/win! Useful- check! They will serve as part of the décor and photo-ops for the party and our friends still love dressing up. Earth friendly- check. I'm sure these will be made of plastic, but at least they will be used more than once. Fun- check! Dressing up is always fun- even for adults. I plan to be decked out in pirate gear for this bash!

Sarita insists that there be gold doubloons, which I am against, mainly because I don't really feel like kids need candy on top of cake. But I am reasonable and plan to put a couple in there also- which will make the burying of the treasure trickier since we live in Texas where things like chocolate doubloons melt rather quickly. No matter, I found a treasure chest cooler that we can bury the treasure in and then use for our Pirates of the Guadalupe trips down the river. Luckily, Whole Foods makes some chocolate coins without all the disgusting hydrogenated oils in them. Useful- eh. You can't win 'em all. Earth friendly- check... At least the coins from Whole Foods will be toxin free. Fun- check! I mean, kids love candy.

My last concern is to keep the price down for the favors, especially because our parties always end up rather large, no matter how small we dream of keeping them. Actually, I am a sucker for a full house and love all the excitement! So, with the loot I have chosen thus far, each favor will cost about six dollars apiece (2 for bandanas, 1.50 for eye patches, 1 for the notebook, and 1 for the candy), but my goal is to get that down to 3 before we're finished. To do that, I will be on the lookout for coupons and free shipping to the party favor sites that have the loot, and I will be on the lookout for cheap notebooks. Since I plan to deconstruct the journals in order to make them captain's logs, I can use any old journal and may even see if I have some floating around the house. I will need about 30 when all is said and done, but they don't have to all be the same, as each will be unique in the end anyway. I also love to send out emails to friends and my mom's club asking for any supplies they might have but not want. I always get great responses! So, I'll be emailing for extra notebooks in the near future. I consider this win/win because it saves me time and money, and it helps my friends de-clutter their spaces. Boy, are they lucky to have me!

Kids also like to walk out the door with something, so I plan to have some individual pirate's booty snacks with some navigational glow in the dark star stickers for the kiddos to grab on the way out. So, those will be another 2 dollars apiece when all is said and done. I do have some leftover glow in the dark stars, so if I can find a few more from friends that have leftovers too, this will be less moola too!

What are some useful and economical favor ideas you've come up with? I'd love to hear your ideas! Happy favoring!