Deal of the Day: We R Memory Keepers - Page Protectors - Multi Pack - Fits 12 x 12 Three Ring Albums

 Click image to order. Just $7.79 with free two day shipping if you have Amazon prime! Cheapest price I've seen to get this shipped to your door. These page protectors are a great for Project Life pages.

Deal of the Day: BasicGrey 2014 Calendar Kit

Who doesn't love BasicGrey? Their awesome 2014 calendar kit is now available, and I found a great price on them on ebay. Just $18.49 plus shipping. I've seen it slightly lower other places, but always with huge shipping and handling fees.


BasicGrey Calendar Kit Click Here!

Deal of the Day: Simple Stories December Documented

Simple Stories December Documented The best price I found: $17.49 shipped!

Deal of the Day: Martha Stewart Crafts Piercing Starter Kit, Pierce and Stitch

Click image to be taken to where you can order this awesome kit! Add texture and interest to your handcrafted cards, gift tags, and decorations with the Martha Stewart Crafts Pierce and Stitch Starter Kit. Use the stencils and piercing tool to add an embossed design. Then, to add more dimension stitch along the impression. Includes 14 pieces: 2 stencils, piercing tool, piercing mat, 6 rolls of thread, 3 metal needles and a needle threader. Just $11.98 with free shipping with Amazon Prime.

Deal of the Day: Heidi Swapp I Believe Album

In this video Heidi Swapp shares the entire collection. She shows the album around 4:30 :)


 The best prices I've found are on ebay. I am getting one of these for me for documenting Christmas this year. Can't wait for it to arrive! Heidi Swapp I Believe Album

Deal of the Day: Ornate Metal Photo Corners

Multiple Styles to choose from starting at $2.25 for 100 pieces with free shipping! Metal Photo Corners

Doodled Arrows Digital Embellishment Set Just $1!

14 doodled arrows with transparent backgrounds. Use them to create fun cards, scrapbook layouts, banners and more! 300 dpi Just $1 this week only! Get it in the store here.

Deal of the Day: Martha Stewart Crafts Large Circle Cutter

Click image to be taken to where you can order this great deal! Just $14.50 with free shipping with Amazon Prime. That is the lowest price I've seen anywhere!

Deal of the Day: Vinyl Perfect for Cutting Machines!

If you have a cutting machine like me then this is a great way to decorate without paying an arm and a leg.

You get Vinyl Ease 30 Sheets of Permanent Adhesive Backed Vinyl for Craft Cutters, 6 by 12-Inch, Assorted colors for just $11.34 with free shipping if you have Amazon Prime! We just moved into our new home and I have a long list of wall decor/quotes I want to put up. This is perfect.

Classic Pirate Printable Party Pack

Throw an incredible Pirate Party with this swashbuckling set!
Set includes:
Water bottle labels
Eye Patches
Signs
Personalized invitation **please leave needed information in Note to seller section at checkout. I will customize the invitation and send you a proof within 24 hours.**
Table Tent Food Labels
Pirate Chest (Cut and fold)
Ship Cupcake Wrappers and Sails
Banner that spells out: Happy Birthday
Pirate Name Game and Name Tags
Pirate Photo Booth Props
Target Practice Game
Printable Treasure Map
Thank You Cards With spot for you to add your own image

Visit our store here to find it: Classic Pirate Party

How I put this party together:

My 7 year old decided on a pirate party this year. I was so excited when he picked it. There are so many ways to do this theme and on a budget a flexible theme is the best thing possible.

Aiden pretty much wanted to invite every person he's ever met, but we got the list down to 16 kids and their parents and 6 other adults. I recruited some of the adults to help with the party :) We decided on doing the party like a carnival. So we had multiple games set up for the kids to wander and do the games they felt like doing. I love that this cuts down on time that the kids have to spend waiting for a turn at a game.

The budget for the party was $70 There were probably around 30 people there.
Printing decor/game items $20.23 (I use OfficeMax and love their MaxPerks program. I had $10 in rewards that I was able to use on printing the items.)
Table cloths $3
Pin the Pirate Treasure Game $1 (awesome find at the dollar store!)
Necklaces for Treasure box loot bags $2
Candy $6.90
Chips and Crackers $3.96
Loot bags $1.35
Gold Coins for Treasure Box loot bags $1.05
2 wood x's for decor $1
red plates, silverware, and napkins $3
candy flavoring $1 (usually $2 but used a 50% off coupon)
2 pirate hooks $4
Cake mix for cupcakes .88 cents
Chocolate Frosting $1 (clearance score!)
Temporary Tattoos $2
Pirate Hats $8
Pirate Balloons $1
Wooden Dowels .97 cents
Juice $1.68
Bottled Water $2.97
Cupcake baking cups free with coupon from Walmart a few weeks ago
Total: $66.99

Always shop your own house and ask family/friends when looking for decoration items. My brother had the cool treasure chest and the ship that he let me borrow. I had the cake stand. I already had a red tablecloth. I borrowed tables and chairs from family and friends as well. Decorations: So doing a party on a budget always takes a bit of planning (at least for me). I set Aiden loose on a pinterest search I ran for pirate parties. It was wonderful. Since it is all pictures it was really easy for him to point to something and say, "I want that". Of course we tweaked things to fit into our party space, budget and time constraints. Okay, enough shameless self promotion!

Onto the how to. Sailboat Food Table
I can't take credit for coming up with this, there are tons of different versions all over the internet on making a table look like a sailboat. This is just how my wonderful husband did it. We cut a piece of white cotton material into a triangle. We cut 5 holes along the upper edge for the rope to got through. We wove the rope in and out of those holes. We put down a black plastic tablecloth. The table already had a hole in the center meant for an umbrella. We used a long pvc pipe as the "mast". We cut a small hole in the tablecloth and put the rope through it then tied the rope to one of the table legs. We also tied the rope to the top of the mast. I strung the banner on some curling ribbon and we tied it to the rope at the top of the mast and then taped it to the table with scotch tape. I also taped the birthday banner to the front edge of the table.

Join the Crew Table This one was easy, black tablecloth, cool ship, and the Join the Crew sign in a frame I already had. Then I spread out the items to get them ready to be pirates. Everyone got a hat, eye patch, pirate name with nametag, and temporary tattoos. The tattoos were a big hit.

For the kids to figure out their pirate name they drew a paper with adjectives (merciless, foul, etc.) from the first treasure chest, and then one from the second treasure chest. The words in the second chest were pirate related items like plank, sea, beard, revenge etc. We wrote those two on their nametag followed by their real first name. My personal favorite was Foul Revenge Sam. (The name game with directions is in the party pack as a printable).

Other Decorations

Out front we put out some balloons and a big red x on the mailbox. We attached the "Beware of Pirates" sign to a wood stake and put it out by the mailbox too. Hopefully it made it easier for partygoers to find us.




































The "Dragon" in the Dragon's Lair Sign on the front door since everyone was outside and we wouldn't be able to hear them knock. Games
Pin the Treasure to the Map This game was a wonderful Dollar Store find, but it would be pretty easy to replicate. Pirate Ship Target Practice This is essentially a bean bag toss game. All you need is a few containers. You can't see it too well in the photo, but I printed out some ships that said 10, 20 or 30 points and glued the papers to the containers. The kids spent a lot of time at this game.   Hook Toss I knew how I wanted this game to look but was having a hard time figuring it out. My husband came up with the brilliant idea of using pegboard. The hooks already had a hole at the base so we used some long twist ties and just threaded them through the holes and then through the pedboard and twisted them at the back. Then the kids used rings to see if they could get them on the hook. Pirate Photo Booth Kian as Colonel Saunders. What a cutie. It was a little hard to convince some of the kids to do the photo booth, but the pictures are so funny! The black "backdrop" is just a plastic tablecloth taped to our deck. I used the pictures in the Thank you cards so that the kids got a copy of their silly pirate photos.

Treasure Hunt The treasure hunt was Aiden's favorite part. I made a simple map and told the kids that they had to follow the dotted line on the map and go to each spot. They ran around the backyard for a good 5 minutes. Until a few finally found the treasure chest and everyone collected their loot bags which had a few chocolate gold coins and a necklace in them.

Food I am in no way claiming all of these cute ideas for the food. I gathered ideas from all over the internet. Aiden picked out his favorite items and that is what we went with. The cupcakes were by far my favorite though. They really looked like a little fleet of pirate ships sitting on the table. After the games, we sang to the birthday boy, enjoyed the food, and opened presents.
I had so much fun putting this party together. I'm pretty sure it was a grand success. Aiden is requesting the exact same party for his next birthday because he wants to "do it all again."