Treasure Map and Clues

Brian's treasure map

One of Brian's clues

     For my birthday party, Brian surprised me with a treasure hunt.  Rather than just making a treasure map, he included a set of clues for an additional challenge.  Since I'm almost always home when Brian is over the summer, he had to be sneaky to hide his plan from me.  I saw him aging the paper and he told me that he was using it to make ant traps, that he had seen online that you could soak paper in coffee and then put sugar on top of it and the ants would come eat the sugar, overdose on caffeine, and fall asleep.  I wondered why he never ended up setting out the traps, but I was also somewhat relieved because I was afraid that he might accidentally kill the ants from the caffeine overdose.

Materials:
*Coffee
*Printer paper
*Baking pan
*Black ink pen

Directions:
*To give your treasure map an antique look, follow the directions for aging paper that I give in my Halloween Potion Pendants post.
*Rather than drawing your house or yard, transform the landscape into an island in the sea.  For example, cars could be drawn as ships, roads become waterways, pine trees turn into palm trees, etc.
*For an added challenge, leave off the X marks the spot aspect of the treasure map and instead write a list of clues that work in conjunction with the map.  Lead people to various landmarks on the map before cluing them in to where the treasure is located.
*Roll up the treasure map and tie it with ribbon to make it look like a scroll

Receiving the treasure map and the first clue

Searching for treasure

My octopus (you'll notice her likeness on the pirate paper cups) Mary Anne Bonny Read (she's named for pirates Mary Read and Anne Bonny) guarding the treasure