We had games, a treasure hunt, crafts, costumes and cake! I made sure every child had a complete costume with their name on it. The costumes included personalized pirate tunics, glittered eye patches, pirate hats
, & swords! Here are instructions to create personalized pirate tunics and fun, safe pirate swords.Personalized Pirate Tunics:
Pirate Costume Materials:
There are several affordable options for inflatable swords
available from various sources. But for you do-it-yourself-ers out there who love to put a personal spin on it, here is a simple way to make swords that are fun to fight with and don't hurt anyone.
Pirate Sword Materials:
- 1 ½ yds Black Burlap fabric
- Rope (to tie around tunics)
- Dark T-Shirt Transfer Paper (Inkjet paper)
- Scissors
- Pirate Costume Template. You will use this file to personalize each child's costume with his/her very own pirate name!
- Pirate Costume Font. This font needs to be installed on your computer in order to create the cool pirate look of the personalized names. Save file to your computer, unzip it, copy and paste the font file to your fonts folder in your control panel and it will work!
- Take black burlap fabric fold in half. Cut 13" widths of folded fabric. Cut out neckhole on each fold. You now have a pirate tunic ready for personalization. (You can double check the measurement against your own child and make adjustments as needed.)
- Using the Pirate Costume Template, personalize a pirate name for each child. The birthday child should be "Captain (your child's name)". Have fun with the names!
- Print each name on a sheet of Dark T-Shirt Transfer paper. You can fit as many names on one sheet as possible which will save paper & ink. The black ink will appear gray when it prints. Don't worry, when the heat of the iron takes effect, it will come off black.
- Cut around each pirate names and iron each name on the front of each costume. Now each child has their very own pirate tunic! Kids love to get into character and it gets them in the spirit of the pirate theme!
- Cut lengths of rope for each child to tie around their waist to secure their tunics.
There are several affordable options for inflatable swords
available from various sources. But for you do-it-yourself-ers out there who love to put a personal spin on it, here is a simple way to make swords that are fun to fight with and don't hurt anyone.Pirate Sword Materials:
- Foam insulation pipe covers cut into 30" lengths. Found at your local hardware store. It is typically used to insulate your pipes from the cold.
- ¾ " wooden dowels in 8" lengths
- 1"x 2" board cut into 4" lengths
- Silver spray paint
- Take 1"x 2" board & cut into 4" lengths. Drill ¾" hole in center of each length.
- Insert one dowel into each hole. Center the board on the dowel so there is an equal length of dowel on either side of 1"x 2". Glue and let dry. One side of the dowel will be the handle and the other side will hold the foam sword.
- Insert one end of dowel into foam insulation. Glue and let dry.
- Once all glue has dried, spray paint each sword with silver spray paint and let dry.
- For an added activity, you can let the kids decorate their swords with pirate stickers and jewels.
