Pirate party DIYs

  These cupcakes were the inspiration for Calvin's pirate party.  Originally, when I thought about throwing his party, I was only going to do these cupcakes and an invitation.  Of course, as soon as I started looking around the internet for ideas for his invite, so many other "simple" things became a part of the party.

  First up, was the stamp for the little flags on top of the sails.  It's hard to see the detail of the little guy, but it's about the size of a dime. 

Calvin wanted to be a nice pirate, so you'll notice that the skull is smiling.

 

  I didn't intend to make a big stamp until I needed to make eye patches.  Stamping paint onto felt didn't work so good as you can see on the right.  However, it was perfect to paint right over. :)

 

I also used the big stamp for the treasure hunt bags.

  For the food labels, I made these origami boats out of cardstock.  I also printed out little Calvin men for the boats.  Do you remember these pictures I showed of Calvin, that's what I was working on.  Well, my sister worked on them.  She whited out the back or whatever you call it.  I don't know how to use photoshop or anything of the sort, I go to my sister for all of my digital editing help.

 

  Speaking of little Calvin men.  Back to the original inspiration of the pArrrty.  Sorry, I had to do it at some point.  These little guys are not paper or printed pictures.  They are little shrinky dink Captain Calvins.

 

I had a bunch of Calvins laser printed onto this shrink film.

They are just over 5 inches tall to start.

 

After being baked, they are just under 2.5 inches.

  They are just so cute!  I have never done this before and what worked best was to have the oven set at 350 and the baking sheet preheated.  Then, put the film on top of cardstock and put the cardstock onto a preheated baking sheet. After 30 seconds, the little men had already mostly shrunk down, but some were still curled.  After 1 minute, they were all shrunk down and flat.

 

  The package mentioned putting parchment on top of them to prevent curling, so when I first started seeing them curl I thought I did it wrong.  However, they all curl and deform, but the longer you have them in there, they eventually flatten out.  If you want to make some shrink dink things, you should definitely do a test piece first so you know what to do.  I actually did follow that instruction and I'm glad I did because it is unlike me to do any sort of tester when doing crafts.  Had I not done a test, I would have ended up with a bunch of warped nice pirates and the cupcakes would have had no captain.  :)

 

  It was such a fun party, but I must say I'm glad it's over.  Time to catch up on other things that I've put on the back burner.

 

Have a great Wednesday!