Piņatas
Treasure Chest
Pirate Ship 

Invitations
Make the invitation on cream parchment paper and roll it up like a scroll, tied with string or ribbon. Make a treasure map on one side with a big X on your house. On the back write: Aye, me hearties. Come to the home of Steve Jones for his birthday revelry. Include date, time, location and RSVP information.

Or use one of these printable pirate party invitations.

Cakes
Make a beach scene on a rectangular cake. Frost the cake with white frosting. Then sprinkle blue colored sugar for the ocean and tan colored sugar for beach. Add a pirate raft made from pretzel sticks or tube shaped cookies. Stack some chocolate covered malt balls as cannon balls and add a few pirate action figures. 

Decorations
Colors are red, black and white.

Make a Jolly Rogers flag out of a black pillow case. On white paper print out a skull and cross bones. Cut them out and pin or glue them to the pillow case. Hang in a prominent place, or on the front door so your guests will know where the party is.

Use skeletons and other Halloween decorations to create a dungeon (either an entire room or just in one corner). Stretch out cobwebs and sprinkle with plastic spiders. Crumple a tin pie plate and cover it with dirt and place dried bread on it, then set it next to a skeleton.

String up a fish net and add a few seashells and star fish.
Print up this pirate birthday banner and hang it up.

Costumes/Dress up
Dress everyone up for your pirate party as piractes, buccaneers and privateers with eye patches or bandanas.

Use brown and black eye liner to draw moustaches, beards, goatees and scars on the guests.

Make swords from foam noodles

Games and Activities
Pin the X (ages 3-8)
Make a treasure map on a posterboard, with a large X. Make several more Xs, enough so each guest can have one. Then take turns blindfolding each guest, spin them around and have them pin, or rather, tape an X on the treasure map. The guest with their X closest to the X on the map wins.

Fishing (ages 3-8)
Pirates live on the sea and near the sea, and therefore, they eat fish. Provide each guest with a fishing pole made with a dowel rod with a string tied at the end, and a magnet tied to the other end of the string. Make a lake or a small ocean on your floor by lining the area with a string or rope. Lay out paper fishes with paperclips on each fish and have the guests stand outside the string and try to collect as many fishes as they can.

Pirate Island Hopping (ages 3-10)
Print out the islands and place them in a circle. Have the guests walk from island to island while you play music. When you stop the music have all your guests stop on the island they're on. Pull a number from a hat and the guest standing on that number gets a prize.

Glass Eye Search (ages 3-10)
Put out several marbles. Make one marble an eyeball. Cut out a circle of white electrical tape and put that on a marble with a smaller circle of black electrical tape on top of the white. Allow your guests to collect as many marbles as they can and the one who finds the glass eyeball wins. No one can say they lost their marbles at your pirate party!

Treasure Hunt (ages 3-16)
Make a treasure hunt. Write up clues on parchment paper and singe the edges with a lit candle. Roll up each clue and partially slide the clue into a clean, empty rum (rootbeer) bottle. Don’t slide the paper in all the way or you might lose the note.

Canon Ball Toss (ages 3-16)
Create a couple of pirate ships, or a ship and an island and divide the guests between the two areas. Provide a bucket filled with water and several sponges at each location and let the guests toss the sponges at each other as though they’re canon fodder. You could use water balloons instead, it just takes more work to fill and tie all the balloons needed. What good is a pirate party without a nautical battle?

Island Race (ages 5-16)
Who can make it to the island before the shark catches them? A game like tag and the island is “safe”. Make two “safe” islands on either side of the yard. All the guests run from one island to the other, and a couple guests are the sharks. If a shark tags or catches a pirate, the pirate becomes a shark. Continue until all the pirates have become sharks.

Sword Fights (ages 5-16)
Provide each guest with a foam sword and allow them to show their swashbuckling skills buccaneer style.

Pirate Lingo (ages 8-16)
Match pirate words with their definitions. Have your guests practice the lingo for the duration of your pirate party for more swashbuckling fun.

Walk the Plank (ages 8-16)
At the beginning of your pirate party introduce the rule that everyone has to end each sentence with “Arrgh!” Whenever someone breaks that rule they have to walk the plank. Place a plank of wood (6 inches in width) off a back step or straddle it between two cinder blocks and have the guests walk it without falling off. It’ll be trickier than it seems because the other guests will be laughing and jeering.

Crafts
Make Eye Patches (ages 3-10)
Make eye patches using these templates. Print onto white cardstock. Allow the guests to cut out and color their own eye patches. Punch out holes as marked. Tie elastic or yarn through the holes and tie behind the guest’s head. It will truly be a pirate party with all the little pirates running around.

Pirate Ship (ages 3-16)
Decorate a large cardboard box (refrigerator box) as a pirate ship. Use a broom handle for the main mast and post a pillow case flag on it.

Pirate Booty (ages 3-16)
Make jewelry with beads and bones and claws. Many craft stores that carry plastic beads also carry plastic beads that look like bones and claws.

Make Spy Glasses (ages 4-10)
Provide several empty toilet paper roll tubes and paper towel tubes so each guest can make their own telescope or binoculars. Provide masking and electrical tape and markers for decorations.

Make Your Own Treasure Map (ages 5-12)
Prepare the treasure map paper before the party. Cut up several brown paper bags, the front and the back of the bag will each make a treasure map. Crumple the papers and soak in a bit of water, then allow to dry. This will soften the paper and make it seem worn. Provide each guest with a paper and markers to make their own treasure map. 

Make Your Own Pirate Flag (ages 5-16)
Provide each guest with a paper to design their own flag, and tape it to a 12 inch dowel. Or, divide the guests into two teams and provide each team with a white pillow case and have them decorate their own pirate flags with markers.

Refreshments
Place cooked hot dogs in a bun. Then, add a white paper sail to a skewer as the main mast and stick one in each hot dog.

Or, turn your hot dogs into octopus. Slice the bottom half of the hot dogs into fourths, so the hot dog will have four tentacles, then cook. Be very careful when serving. Every pirate party needs a little danger.

Offer tropical fruit salad or cut up chunks of pineapple, banana and apple and serve them on skewers. Include a maraschino cherry at the end of the skewer.

Serve golden treasures: goldfish crackers, butterscotch candies and carrot slices as doubloons (gold coins)

Make some red colored punch, double strength. Add the correct amount of sugar, but only half the amount of water. Then make into ice cubes. Serve the red ice cubes in Sprite or 7-Up and serve as Sea Serpent Blood Drinks.

Root beer in bottles for rum

Take Home Gift Ideas
Gold coins (you could even give everyone a roll of pennies)

Costume jewelry

Small compass