Pirate Party!

Argghh! Here are some awesome ideas on how to throw a pirate themed party for your little matey!

Invites: 

Invites can be made on traditional paper and include pirate theme ideas or make your invites look like a map! An even more creative idea is to deliver invites in glass bottles to look like treasure maps in a bottle. 

Decorations:

Create tables to look like pirate ships! Each table should have a black tablecloth, white sails and black flags with skulls and cross bones on them. You can use treasure chests filled with plastic jewelry and chocolate gold coins as centerpieces. 

If you're going more the Disney's Hook/Peter Pan route, you can have a cardboard cut out of Tinker Bell locked in a bird's cage for decoration like in the movie. 

Creative door decorations can be made using red, white and black construction paper. 

Pirate ship centerpieces are made from black construction paper and skull cutouts. 

Party Food: 

Incorporate pirate fun into every aspect of your cake to make it look like this one. Include a hook, skull and cross bones, treasure and water. 

For your very own pirate food table include sour gummy worms in a jar labeled Fish Bait. 

Fill a bowl with potato chips and gold fish crackers and label it Fish N Chips.

Chocolate donut holes or grapes can be labeled Cannonballs and blue mondos are now Salty Sea Water drinks.

Create your own pirate's hat cake!

Or for the really talented, make your own treasure map cupcakes!

Assorted fruits are now Pirate's Jewels on your pirate food snack table. Hotdog wienies are now Dead Man's Fingers and pinwheel cheese and meat sandwiches in green tortillas are now Seaweed Wraps. 

Fill a bowl with any candy with a gold wrapper and label it Pirate Loot. 

These are printable cupcake toppers to go on top of your cupcakes! 

A cheese and cracker dish is now Polly's Crackers!

Games: 

Create your own Hook Toss! Paint a piece of cardboard red and black and glue several hooks to the cardboard. You can use round pool toys with open holes to throw onto the hooks. 

Set up a tattoo parlor for all of the little pirate's coming to the party! Provide various tattoos that stick with the theme like skulls, flowers, crossbones, parrots, ships, water and mermaids. 

Have your guests walk the plank! Lay down blue tarp for the ocean and spray paint cardboard fins silver to make sharks. Spray paint a piece of wood to say "Walk the Plank" and all guests have to see if they can make it across the sea! 

Treasure Hunt! Fill a sand box with the following items or hide them throughout your back yard. 

-5 gold coins

-1 plastic alligator

-1 large jewel

-1 pirate ball

-1 gemstone ring

Whoever finds the most treasure wins!

Party Favors: 

Send home party favor bags filled with candy, eye patches, cold coins and polly's crackers. These perfect tags for the party favor bags say, "Thanks for the treasure! For it was a pleasure!" 

Set up a table full of eye patches so that all of the guests can be pirates. Another possibility is a table full of pirates' hats as well. 

An awesome way to send guests home in a fun way is to create your own Pirate Booty bags with your child's name on them. Fill with candy for the kids! 

Giggle Bean specializes in children's parties, showers and events of all kinds in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia.

Credits:
Printable toppers: Catch My Party
Pirate ship centerpieces: Etsy
Pirate Cake: Catch My Party
Invites in bottle: Serenity Lane
Invites: Etsy
Tattoo Parlor: Feathers and Sunshine
Personalized favor bags: Karas Party Ideas
Tinkerbell Decoration: Catch My Party
Hook Toss: Apple & Hubby
Pirate Loot: Catch My Party
Map Cake: Cake Central
Ship Tables: Indulgy
Party food: The Creative Paige
Map Invite: Party Idea Collections
Eye Patches: Catch My Party
Fish Bait: lvsocia
Treasure Hunt:Hostess with the Mostess
Polly's crackers: Hostess with the Mostess
Walk the Plank: Etsy

Dino-ROAR Party!

ROARRRR! Learn how to throw an awe-inspiring dinosaur themed party here!

Invites:

You can create your own funny invites with a little help from photo shop!

Traditional dino invites.

Decorations: 

Green streamers can be used to create the jungle theme hanging from doorways. Dinosaur prints can be made with black construction paper. 

There are many ways to make the Dinosaur theme your own. Printable leaves and dinosaur footprints are creative ways to make chair backs pop. Balloons and blow up dinosaurs can be centerpieces. 

Create your own activity section for the party! Set up little tables and chairs for the kids to play games. Secure foam dinosaur face cut outs to each chair. 

Games:

For dinosaur bingo print out cards with names and pictures of various dinosaurs and the kids can use different stones/rocks to cover up the squares they have. 

Build your own terrarium! This is a creative activity for your dino lovers. The kids all get their own clear, plastic bowl. Set up a table with fake grass, leaves, rocks, stones and plastic dinosaurs and party go-ers can have their own terrarium to take home. 

A fun party game is the Dino Dig! Set up different plastic sand boxes filled with sand. Give children "excavating tools" aka sand box toys and have them go to each sand box and try to find a specific hidden plastic dinosaur. Whoever finds the dinosaur first, wins! 

Glacier Excavating! 

Freeze small plastic dinosaurs in ice cubes and give each kid their own. They have to smash open the "glacier" to get their dinosaur prize!

Party Food:

An awesome way to incorporate the theme into a party table is to have one area labeled "Carnivores" and one area labeled "Herbivores." The Carnivore table will have snacks with meat like meatballs, dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets and meat sandwiches. The Herbivore area will have fruit and cups of ranch with celery and carrot sticks.

Dinosaur cupcakes can be created with chocolate cupcake mix and chocolate icing. Place tiny plastic dinosaurs on top!

Label your drink area Drinkasaurus!

Dinosaur fossil cookies: Make sugar cookies and use dinosaur plastic toy footprints to create the "fossil" look on each cookie.

Lava Cakes: Make your favorite chocolate cake recipe and use orange and red candy melts to create the lava on each cake.

Dino Bones: Cover a pretzel stick and two pieces of popcorn at each end with white chocolate to create the perfect dinosaur bones. 

Individual brownies are now Prehistoric Stones!

How awesome is this Stegosaurus Cake?!

ROAR! This cake is dino-mite!

Party Favors: 

Label bubbles "Dino Repellant" as a fun party favor for guests!

Credits:

Dinosaur cupcake: Crafts by Courtney
Dino Dig: Nicoles
Terranium: While the girls are sleeping
Dino Bingo: Hostess with the Mostess
Lava Cakes: Top Party Ideas
Dino Bubbles: Etsy
Excavating Dinos: The happier homemaker
Invites: Catch my party
Invites: Minimoz
Drinks: Etsy
Decorations: Learn with play at home
More Decorations: Catch My Party

Giggle Bean specializes in children's parties, showers and events of all kinds in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia. 

A Super Sweet Candyland Birthday Celebration

Candyland is such a classic family board game and candy is almost every child's favorite food so throw your little one a sweet Candyland birthday party.  They may be sticky and jumping off the walls by the end of the party but it will be worth it when you see how much fun they are having.  For some, your little one might not be so little anymore.  That's alright because this theme makes a sweet 16 party a little more sweeter.  Candyland is so versatile, I've seen it for baby showers, prom themes and end of school parties.  Here are some ideas that will have your guests singing,  "Goodie Goodie Gum Drops."

Invitations

If you are able to hand deliver the invitations, I love the gum drop cut out idea.  I would clear or colored cellophane wrapper over it and throw in a few pieces of real candy.  Invitations that need to be mailed can also have candy added, like a lollipop, with a cute colorful bow.  This gives your guests a little taste of the fun that's to come.

 

Edible Sweets

(photo courtesy of Beauty Tutorials)

Rainbow layered cakes are all the rage right now. This cake design embodies candy, obviously because its made of sugar, but also because of its bright and vibrant colors.

If you don't know, I'm a lover of tiered themed cakes.  I use them as a focal point for my dessert table.

(photo courtesy of Make Bake Celebrate)

The game pieces from Candyland are very easy to make and have such an impact. A gingerbread man cookie cutter can help create these colorful characters to give the kids something to snack on during the celebration.

Decorative Sweets

(photo courtesy of Indulgy)

A bundle of lollipops is always a plus. A large lollipop bouquet can be used as a centerpiece for the table or smaller ones can be generously given to the guests in their goody-bags 

This tablescape is so awesome! It's big, bright, and beautiful. You can totally make these giant lollipop centerpieces.  Check out Spoonful's tutorial here.

(photo courtesy of U Create Parties)

These hard candy decorations are easier to make than they look. Fold a few sheets of paper like you were making paper fans and then just tape them together. You might have to trim the edges to make a perfect circle. I would totally use these as a backdrop for a food table or photo booth.  I have  more DIY decorations, check out on my Pinterest board to see them. 

Entertaining Sweets

(photo courtesy of Life In The Green House)

If the party is during the summer you can have the gumball lake with some water in it to help the kids cool off but if not, just fill the entire pool with plastic balls.

(photo courtesy of Crafty Engineering)

If you have a large enough space you can even make a life-sized version of the Candyland game! The kids will be amazed and entertained for hours.

Sweet Favors

After the kids have OD on candy and sweets, it would be so fabulous as a part of their favor to give a toothbrush.  How stinking cute is that?!  The parents might be appreciative too.

Vendor Credits

Candy Cut-out Invite - LeeLaaLoo on Etsy

Candyland tiered cake - Cakes with Love

Party Favor - Party Love

I'd love to see and hear about a sweets party you have done.  Comment or link your pics below.