So this year I was really inspired on Pinterest to try some new DIY birthday decorations and foodie additions to one of my children’s birthday parties. It was much cheaper than other methods, looked cooler, and I think made him feel really special.

Want to see exactly where my inspiration came from? Okay! Check out my Pinterest Board where you will find all the people who helped make the party come alive.

The Cake:

The cake was completely stolen borrowed from various Pinterest images/blogs. It’s really amazing what others do. It’s truly a blessing. It’s that sense that I don’t have to reinvent the wheel AT ALL. Some other person WAY more talented and brilliant than myself came up with some ideas (probably stolen borrowed from some other fabulous crafter before them) and I get to sit back and benefit from it. It’s truly amazing when you think about it. Other than the time and energy to get the supplies and put it together, it’s rather inexpensive. Everything except for the mast and sails was edible. As in, you could eat it.

What do you think?

I will tell you how I started. Used a regular Duncan Hines Lemon cake mix. Baked it in a 9×11 Pyrex glass pan. Used a second box and baked it on a few small containers I had lying around to make some of the higher layers. I ended up cutting the pieces to fit it together and just made something work. We used photos of pirate ships to figure out how much and how high to make the various levels. I cut the front of the boat into an arrow shape. Then I started icing. You can buy icing in the store (Wilton sells a big tub of it at Michael’s for $16.99) or you can make it from scratch. I chose the Wilton’s Buttercream Icing recipe on most of their cake pans and doubled it. I used their gel icing coloring – Brown, Sky Blue, and a mixture of Skin Tone, Copper and Brown to make the sandy beach color. The sides of the boat were a darker brown than the top. And then I just started adding M&Ms, Graham Crackers, Hershey’s bars, and those little silver balls are these little candy pieces I had. Wished they were gold but I was committed to using what I had. I did find some ice cream sprinkle topping in the pantry so I added that to the beach to make it look like sand. The fire on the beach was made with miniature Hershey and crunch bars left over from Valentine’s day (shhh) and the fire was made from a Swedish Fish, of all things. My husband graciously agreed to make the mast and sails. He went online and found the image and printed it out. Used a wooden skewer to poke it through and then had the sugar cone resting on a piece of chocolate somehow. The board it’s sitting on is one of those cardboard cake boards you buy in the store and I just wrapped it in foil.

Next on the list (below) is the Watermelon Shark. I had every intention of doing this, but in the end, yep, you guessed it…My wonderful husband got out the knife and went to work. In all fairness here, his brain is better at this kind of thing. The most difficult thing was scooping out the watermelon without mauling the entire rest of it. You can’t see the sign, but the Pinterest person wrote the sign next to it as “Shark Bites”. I thought that was so clever I stole borrowed it too.

The beverages were the easiest, by far. The bottles I found at IKEA by accident. Wasn’t sure if i would add sand to them or what. And pretty much everything got an extra dose of twine or rope to make it seem more rough and pirate-y.

My favorite part was probably the “loot” we offered the kids when they left. Recently we were hiking with the kids so we decided to start picking up sticks for the  swords as we walked. It wasn’t that much more work and just required some forethought. The two pieces were held together with… yep…twine. The material was one of my favorite things. IKEA! Who knew IKEA had red and white striped fabric as well as black and white polka dots. At less than $8/yd and only needing 2 yds of each, this was excellent. I turned them into bandanas (I used pinking shears and cut triangles); girls got polka dots, boys got stripes. Score! Next for the eye patches. Black felt and elastic. Super easy. These were part of their favor but they got to wear them around the party so that was cool too.

My hope is that my little post will help you plan your next party. As they say, sharing is caring. Enjoy!