Noemie's Pirate Birthday Party

On saturday we had my daughter's fourth birthday party. The theme was set a long while ago and I have spend the last few month stocking items and researching the web for ideas. I have read blogs from many talented ladies along the way and discovered the world of dessert tables. It has been of great inspiration to me and I therefore decided to try and make one myself.

The colour scheme I picked was black, red and pink. It had to be piratey with a girlie touch ! I built the theme around a great digital collage sheet from CreationsByM on Etsy.

I used the designs from the collage sheet to create the invitations and a door sign to welcome the little guests.

Guests were handed a homemade eyepatch as they walked in.

The tissue paper pom-pom was made using Martha Stewart's tutorial.

The party was held outside, in our small garden where I tried to create a nice party atmosphere by setting up a buffet and decorating our daughter's tree house.

I made the banner using digital scrapbooking papers from MariekeVDesin on Etsy.

Water bottle labels and straw labels were created in Photoshop.

The windmills were made with scrapbooking paper (tutorial here). They were actually a great feature of the table as they kept spinning all through the windy afternoon.

I made the cake from a Debbie Brown design in her book Enchanted Cakes and I created the cookies to match the theme (thank you to all the ladies on Flickr for inspiring me).

The very cute Sail toppers were free printables from Cottage Industrialist.

The flag is an iron-on applique (skull and cross-bones design was found on the internet).

The bunting was made using the banner papers and free printables from Cottage Industrialist.

I had planned a few games to entertain our little pirates. The first one was a "Pin the pirate on the treasure" game found on ebay. The map was colourful and after the game we ended up using it as a background for pictures, sort of a little photo booth.

We also had a traditional "pass the parcel" game. But after a few layers of treats, our little pirates started unwrapping jigsaw pieces and a pirate letter indicating that the pieces should form the first clue of the treasure hunt !! At this point the children got very excited and started running everywhere in the garden, following the clues and eventually finding the treasure.

Inside the treasure chest were jute bags holding chocolate coins.

When the children started getting a bit tired we had them seat down for a little craft/colouring session. I had printed pirate colouring pages off the internet and prepared an easy telescope craft.

I think they enjoyed it and the quiet time was welcome before going back to the garden to play and eat the cake.

When it was time to leave, each guest got to choose a cookie and a windmill. They were also handed a party bag including a homemade Pirate book with colouring and games, some stickers and a ballon.

Noemie pretty much enjoyed her cookie too !