Pirate Party Ideas for Girls

When my daughter announced she wanted a “pirate” birthday party this year, it was all hands on deck! I thought it was super cool that she went for a non-traditional theme. We decided to do aqua and hot pink for the color scheme to make it interesting… and the whole crew/family pitched in.

The Party

For the activities, we decided to do a treasure hunt and then watch the first “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie. I love putting parties together and can easily go “overboard” but I made a conscious choice to keep this one budget friendly and casual.

First– the treasure hunt. We wanted the girls to all feel special and like they were part of a team, so we had them all work together to find the “treasure chest” filled with necklaces.

I spray painted a simple wooden chest in Aloha by Plutonium Paint. Then I grabbed some colored seed bead necklaces from Ben Franklin Crafts and Frames in Redmond, WA– although you can easily find them in jewelry/craft stores all over the country. Here is how I made the necklaces. It was incredibly quick.

Supplies: Aqua and Pink Seed Bead Necklaces, jump rings, anchor pendants and jewelry pliers.

Instructions: Use jewelry pliers to open the jump rings, and attach to pendant and necklace.

Then we filled the treasure chest up with the necklaces and my husband make some clues for the girls, each leading the next. It was so cute, he actually burned the edges of the clues to give them more of a pirate-y look.

The girls ran around the park, with assistance from my son, finding all the clues. They loved finding and opening the treasure chest!

Another party detail– my daughter and I decorated the “goody bags.” These canvas bags cost $1 each from Ben Franklin Crafts and Frame.

Supplies: SEI Tumble Dye, Canvas Bags, Vinyl Skulls.

Directions: Place cardboard inside bags. In a well ventilated area, spray with Tumble Dye to get a “paint splatter” look. Air dry and following package instructions, set with heat.

Remove the vinyl.

And you have a super cute bag! We kept the goodies simple: gold coin candy, an eyepatch (from Target), and a bag of shells with a thank you not attached. PicMonkey has some great free fonts and graphics that fit in perfectly with a pirate theme.

I used “Blackletter” type and the free “Nautical” images from PicMonkey to make these little notes that tied them to the bags with baker’s twine. I’ll be honest, we sometimes have a tough time getting thank you notes to all the guests. We aren’t allowed to hand them out at school and sometimes a few fall through the cracks– so this was sort of a pre-thank you!

Back to the party. We handed the girls an eye patch as they arrived to break the ice. Then they did the treasure hunt. Next, it was time to hit the galley for pizza and fruit.

We kept the decorations really low key. You can see in the back right corner that I used Plutonuim Paint in Aloha (blue) and Vegas (pink) on “AHOY” Marquee Letters from Heidi Swapp. Then… ARGH… movie time!

Talk about cheap deocations. In the room where the girls watched the movie, I just left out my summer coastal/beachy decor.

Budget Friendly Movie Party Tip

Here’s a cool tip. If you’re having a movie party or other event at home, some move theaters will sell you popcorn at a super reasonable price. I bought a gigantic (mega sized garbage bag) of movie theater popcorn for a small fraction of what it would have cost me if I bought it on the theater. I had man’s, swedish fish, junior mints and other candy available for the kids to mix in to their personal popcorn bowls.

I found that the kids had just as good of a time as if I had gone crazy with the party planning (which I enjoy doing too).