Cabin Girl and Mr. Monkey have birthdays 4 days apart.  Awesome planning on my end.  We decided that this year, to make things simpler (HA!), we would do a combined birthday party for them.  But, how to combine a birthday for a 7 year old girly-girl and a 2 year old rough and tumble toddler boy?

The answer, my friends, is in Never Neverland.

Pirates, mermaids, fairies, lost boys, and Indians…  Something to interest EVERYONE!

I love, love, LOVE theme parties.  And when we learned that we’d be moving at the end of this summer and that this would be our last chance to have a big party with all of our friends, I went cuh-razy.

Thanks to Pinterest, there are a million and one ideas out there for an uber planner like myself.  No thanks to Pinterest, they are all picture perfect, done in a modest budget, and oh-so simple (I hope you read my sarcasm on that last one).  Cabin Girl is starting to pick up on my joy of planning and doing, so she really wanted to be part of the process… but how can a 7 year old do all the crafty things I wanted her to in perfect Pinterest fashion?

She can’t.  So I let it go and embraced the perfection in her imperfect help, and we had So. Much. Fun.

To keep this party within a modest budget, we reused a TON of stuff, which I’ll point out, along with Cabin Girl’s handiwork, in the pictures.

Without further ado my friends, I give you our:

Every party needs balloons!

 

Choose your costume!

Fairy wings and Indian headbands were made from scrap felt, elastic, and craft clips; Pirate eyepatches were purchased from Target; Mermaid (seashell) necklaces were found at a garage sale.

 

 

 

Once a costume was chosen, it was time to….

 

Proceed to Neverland!

We moved the curtains down from the kids’ room, cut the stars out of scrap felt and safety pinned them on, and repurposed an old valance that was going to be thrown out for our banner.

To get their treasure (goodie bags), they had to complete a scavenger hunt through Neverland!

 

Collect a bag, 1 feather, 1 starfish, 3 gold dubloons, and 1 flower.

 

The Lost Boy bag from Hangman’s Tree.

 

Hangman’s Tree

I used scrap fabric, bamboo skewers, and twine for the Lost Boy tents.

 

Blackfoot Camp

The teepees were pretty much wrecked immediately.

I repurposed the bamboo pea poles from my garden and curtains from the house. 

Feathers for the hunt were purchased from a craft store.

Mermaid Lagoon

I found a pack of prettily colored starfish at a party store.

Skull Rock

Yep, our sandbox is a Pirate ship, made of wood from the patio cover we rebuilt.

  It is always well stocked with Gold Dubloons.

Fairy Garden

Lantern lights from World Market dressed up with tissue paper wings

and a planter box with woodchips and fake flowers, found at the craft store.

All the signs were made from scrap wood and paint in our garage.  Cabin Girl had a wonderful time painting them.

Once they had collected all the items on their map, they had to come to me to get their ‘loot’ from the treasure chest filled with various toys and candy.

Meanwhile, the adults enjoyed….

Blackfoot Bounty, Treasure Eggs, Mermaid Melon, Never Say Never Cheese, Pirate Booty, Fairy Berries, Lost Boy Bread, and Jelly Starfish.  Along with Croc Bites (meatballs) and Kraken Sausage (In hindsight, I wish I’d called them Kraken Tentacles.  Oh well.)

Cabin Girl helped name and label all of the food.

**Bit of a tangent here for a mo; Last year, I used this great tutorial (found on Pinterest, of course), on how to make your own character/custom cake decorations.  I ordered a giant cake from Costco with just writing on it because I planned on doing my own decorations again using this method.  It does NOT work with Gel icing.  So we improvised on the cake decor.  The kids didn’t care (or notice) that the cake wasn’t totally awesome looking AT ALL.

See?  Ugly cake.  But it was scrumptious!

 

7 candles for the girl, 2 for the boy.

The party went on…

 

How many Merkids can fit into 1 faux lagoon?

And I really, truly think that a great time was had by all, if these 2 are any indication…

 

Previously published at Domestic Pirate.

An aspiring novelist, Jessica is the Domestic Pirate, Ren Faire Privateer Gone Mom. When she’s not blogging or wasting time on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram she’s taking care of the Captain and their 4 Cabin Kids. Her writing has been featured on Scary Mommy, xoJane, Mamalode, Sammiches and Psych Meds, Mamapedia Voices, BLUNTmoms, and BlogHer, and she is working on publishing her first children’s book. Obsessed with Pirates and the internet, she is convinced that the dough is always better than the cookie