Austin's Deep Sea Pirate Party

Was awesome. If I do say so myself. Thanks to Pinterest and First Mate Mommy, I think Captain Austin had a pretty spectacular time...

We wrapped the windows in the sun room with blue cellophane and hung up jellyfish and crepe seaweed for an undersea feeling

We got some silver trays and plates from Goodwill, added paper boats and raided the Halloween decorations

Digging for treasure in the yard was a huge hit. We used about 200 lbs of sand to fill up the kiddie pool enough for digging.

I spray painted that X with two pieces of cardboard as guides. Just lay your cardboard on the sand parallel to each other to make one line, then turn 90 degrees to make the other.

We dug for Mardi Gras doubloons, necklaces and gold nuggets! Spray painting rocks gold for party favors was a brilliant idea from Notable Nest.

Some of the treasure was delicious.

This was just a piece of wood from Home Depot with two stepping stones underneath

The plank also made an excellent buffet table. We got some costume stuff from Goodwill for Dread Pirate Daddy.

Use paper plates and scissors to make a set of shark jaws! Excellent toddler party craft from Dollar Store Crafts.

Sophie just enjoyed the paper plates :)

The biggest hit was these Cannonball Cascarones. Just follow the instructions for blowing and cleaning the eggs, paint 'em black (I used some acrylic paint I had lying around) and stuff them with red tinsel or crinkled paper.

Fire!

Eggs contributed by our completely authentic Pirate Chickens

Jellyfish balloons made with glue, tissue paper, tinsel and curling ribbon

Hang a creepy cloth and some skeletons from your yardarm, with a crochet hoop. If you do it on a chandelier like I did, make sure you're using CFLS so you don't burn your Pirate Party down with your cheap ass dollar store cloth ;)

I also refused to shell out for themed party dishes and instead gave out stickers so my guests could ID their drinks.

They also made a fun way for toddlers to help with Austin's big birthday card :)