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

Felt Pirate Eye Patches

     These felt eye patches are great for a pirate themed party.  You can either make them to give out as party favors, or you can let partygoers make their own patches by tying the elastic to the felt patches.

Materials:
*Black felt
*Hole punch
*Black elastic
*Scissors

Directions:
*Cut out eye patches from black felt.
*Punch out a hole in either side of the eye patch.  The hole punch I was using was rather dull and so it only punched out the circle halfway, but I actually liked it better that way because the holes weren't as visible.
*Tie elastic to the holes, making sure it is neither too tight nor too loose to fit properly on peoples' heads.  This step can also be left to the partygoers themselves.

Pirate Themed Perler Fuse Bead Coasters

     I found some of these patterns on these sites and also in one of the Perler Mega Ideas books, while others I came up with on my own.

Materials:
*Fuse bead kit (e.g. Perler beads kit)
*Iron
*Black felt
*Black embroidery floss
*Scissors
*All purpose adhesive

Directions:
*Arrange beads on a small square peg board, following the patterns shown above for guidance.
*Cover your pattern with a sheet of waxed paper and iron the first side, then remove from the peg board, flip over, put waxed paper on top and iron the second side.  You can find more detailed directions here.
*For the octopus coaster, glue a scrap of black felt to a piece of black embroidery floss to create an eye patch.
*Thread the embroidery floss through the holes in the coaster and tie in the back to fasten it to the octopus's head.
*Glue the eye patch in place.

Personalized Pirate Paper Cups

Materials:
*Paper cups
*Scissors
*White printer paper
*Cardstock
*Computer and printer
*Pencil
*Tape

Directions:
*Disassemble a paper cup.  It should separate into two pieces, a curved, rainbow-like shape and a circle.  Discard the circle.
*Snip off the rim of the cup and the folded over part at the bottom that had been used to hold the circle in place.
*Trace the shape of the cup onto a sheet of white printer paper and cut it out.  This will be your template.
*Create your personalized cup design.  Here's the design I used:

*Print out your design.  Position the template so that your image is in the center of the template.  Trace around the template and cut out.
*Tape your design to a paper cup.
*Repeat for the remainder of the cups.

Pirate Shirt and Bow

Pirate Shirt

Materials:

*T-shirt

*Pirate fabric

*Fusible interfacing for T-shirts

*Iron

*Scissors

Directions:

*Cut out a patch of fabric slightly larger than the size you would like your design to be.

*Cut out a comparably sized piece of fusible backing.

*Follow the directions that come with your fusible interfacing.  I don't know a lot about fusible interfacing, but I think the ones designed for T-shirts mostly have instructions along these lines: peel off paper backing on one side of the interfacing and press that side to the fabric.  Iron to the fabric.  Trim off any excess fabric.  Peel off the remaining paper backing.  Position the fabric on the desired spot on the shirt.  Cover with a damp press cloth and then iron down.  Remove the press cloth and iron the shirt dry.

Pirate Bow

Materials:
*Ribbon

*Pirate fabric

*Heavyweight white fabric

*Fusible interfacing

*Iron

*T-shirt

*Barrette

*All purpose adhesive

*Scissors

Directions:

*Cut off a length of ribbon and tie to form a bow.

*Snip out triangles from the ends of the ribbon, if desired.

*Create a pirate decal for the bow using the above directions for the pirate shirt, except fuse the pirate fabric to the white fabric instead.

*Glue the bow to the barrette and the decal to the center of the bow.

Pirate Octopus Cupcake Toppers

     On Sunday I had my pirate themed birthday party, so for the next few weeks I'll be posting pirate themed crafts.  If you're planning a pirate party, you may also want to check out an older post of mine, Growing Alum Crystals and Treasure Chest Display.

Materials:
*Black clay
*Green clay (or other color you would like to use to make the octopus's body)
*Black permanent marker
*Baking sheet

Directions:
*Mold green clay into the shape of an octopus.
*Use black clay to make the eye and the patch for the eye patch.
*Bake clay according to the directions on the package.
*Remove from oven and set aside to cool.  Once it's cool, draw on the string part of the eye patch using a permanent marker.

Growing Alum Crystals and Treasure Chest Display

Alum Crystals

Brian and I have been experimenting with growing different types of crystals.  We started with a dollar store crystal kit, then tried growing table salt crystals.  Neither of these crystals grew as well as we had hoped they would, but then we tried growing alum crystals and they came out pretty well.  I'm including a link to the video I worked from in addition to my own, slightly modified directions. 

Materials:
*1/2 cup of hot water
*2 1/2 tablespoons of alum (a pickling spice available in most grocery stores)
*7-10 drops of food coloring (optional)

Directions:
*Add alum to the hot water and stir until it dissolves.  If you end up with a little bit of alum that won't dissolve it probably will not make a difference, but you can always heat up the solution a little more and the remaining alum should dissolve.
*Add food coloring to the solution.
*Let the solution sit undisturbed for some time.  I made my solution before bed and let it sit overnight and observed crystals forming by the next morning. 
*Let the crystals sit in solution until they reach the desired size.  If they do not grow as much as you would like them to, you can remove the large crystals from the solution, heat up the solution and dissolve any remaining alum, and then place the large crystals back into the solution once it has cooled.
Note: Food coloring may hinder the growth of crystals some, so if crystal size is more important to you than color, you may want to leave out the food coloring.

Treasure Chest Display

This craft can serve as an excellent way to display your alum crystals, but there are many other possible uses for it as well.

Materials:

*Jewelry box

*Gold paper

*2-3 sheets of paper with wood pattern

*Round hole punch

*Rhinestones

*Faux pearls

*String

*Glue

*Scissors

Directions:

*Cut out a rectangle of wood patterned paper equal to the size of the bottom of the jewelry box.

*Punch out gold circles and glue them to the wood patterned rectangle to make it look like the floor of the treasure chest is covered in gold coins.

*Add rhinestones and strands of faux pearls as you wish.

*Remove the jewelry cushion inside the box and set it aside.

*Cover the inside and outside of the jewelery box and lid with wood patterned paper, except for one side on the lid and one side on the box where you will be hinging the lid to the box.

*Cut two strips of wood patterned paper and use them to connect the lid to the box.

*Cover the rest of the inside of the box with wood patterned paper.

*Place the jewelry cushion back inside the box.

*Place the decorated piece of paper on top of the jewelry cushion.

*Arrange your alum crystals inside your treasure chest display.