Pirate Ship With Party Game

Materials for ship: Cardboard, pen, paper maché (newspaper, flour, water), acrylic paint (brown, black, gold, white, silver, yellow), paper towel and toilet paper rolls, hot glue gun, disposable cup, chain, popsicle sticks, pennies, wooden dowel, wire, push pin, black material, chalk, and rope.

Materials for game: Small containers filled with candy, permanent marker, stuffing, prizes for the winning draws.

*Get a box that is as large as you want the ship to be.

*Draw out the general shape of the ship on the box. You can use images for reference if needed.

*Make sure both sides of the box have the same drawing. Use a tape measure to make sure the lines start and end at the same points.

*Cut along the lines, however be strategic as not all lines need to be cut completely. Some only need to be folded if there is going to be cardboard in that space anyways. For the main deck you can cut the diagonal lines as well as a line from one side of the box to the other and fold the centerpiece in.

*Draw out how you want the front of your ship to look.

*I ended up changing how I wanted my ship front to look so I've attached the original images as well as the changes I made later. This is why you see part of the boat with paper maché on it already.

*Use cardboard to fill the underside of your boat.

*Cut some partial lines in multiple directions in the cardboard to make it flexible.

*Tape cardboard pieces together.

*Using a box cutter, cut half way through the lines that shape the back of the boat. This will make it easier to fold.

*Fold along the lines and tape together.

*Cut any excess cardboard the doesn't line up with the rest of the boat.

*If there are any open spaces left in the board, fill them in with a piece of cardboard.

*Take a piece of cardboard and hold it to the space to be filled.

*Trace where you want the cardboard to go.

*Cut along the lines, and tape in place.

*If you want to put in an anchor, you'll want to leave a hole so you can tinker with the mechanism as it sometimes has issues.

*This part doesn't need to be beautiful as it will be hidden inside the boat.

*This will give the chain something to wrap around so the anchor can be raised and lowered.

*Using an empty duct tape roll create a ring that will go around it and a circle that can go on top.

*Collect paper towel and toilet paper rolls.

*Cut down the middle.

*Form the masts by rolling the tubes into tighter rolls.

*Tape together with duct tape.

*Cover in paper maché.

*Measure where you want the holes to go so that they are evenly spaced.

*Trace small round object to create 3 cannon holes.

*Cut out with a box cutter.

*Use aluminum foil to give it 3 dimensions.

*Cover in paper maché.

*Hold a piece of cardboard up to the side of the boat, and draw out how you want your railing to look.

*Cut out and trace so that there are 2 pieces.

*Check that both pieces fit, they can be adjusted if needed.

*Glue in place.

*Cover in paper maché.

*There are 3 steps I used to attach the masts.

*Glue with hot glue gun, use lots of glue.

*Tape with duct tape.

*Attach with 2 layers of paper maché.

*Create a mixture of flour and water so it is about the consistency of thick cream.

*Tear up strips of newspaper to about 1 inch width, or to your own preference.

*Dip strip into flour and water mixture and run between fingers to remove excess liquid.

*Smooth strip along cardboard and overlap pieces until all the cardboard is covered.

*Let dry.

*Using a small disposable cup, cut it to desired height.

*Cut a hole in the bottom so it can fit on the mast.

*Paint brown using acrylic paint.

*Glue onto mast after it has been painted.

*Cut a small triangle out of black material and attached it to a tooth pick and stick it at the top of the mast above the crows nest using hot glue.

*Cut off ends of popsicle sticks

*Cut into even lengths, this will be how high the railing will be

*Leave some long, these will make the top of the railing.

*Glue in place with a hot glue gun.

*Use some left over popsicle sticks from the railing.

*Cut diagonal lines on the bottom so it can fit the boat slope.

*Glue together using a hot glue gun.

*Paint a light brown with acrylic paint.

*Glue to boat after boat has been painted.

*Make anchor shape using aluminum foil.

*Attach with tape if pieces aren't staying together.

*Roll up a bunch of pennies to give it weight.

*Cover in paper maché.

*Paint with a mixture of silver and black acrylic paint.

*Draw and cut out a tiny ship wheel.

*Paint brown, accent with black and gold.

*Stick push pin through wheel.

*Stick push pin through popsicle stick.

*Hot glue pin so that it is no longer shart.

*Paint push pin with gold acrylic paint.

*Make sure wheel is able to be spun.

*Cut some wooden dowels to the widths you want your sails to be.

*Cut out some black fabric to be about the length of the wooden dowels, it can be a little longer as we'll be folding the material and it will lose some length.

*Iron the material so it is smooth.

*Fold one side up about 1cm and iron, fold again and iron again.

*Unfold latest fold and add hot glue, refold and press down.

*Repeat on the side directly across from the side you just finished. These will be the top and bottom of the sail.

*For the sides, do the same as above except glue in a piece of wire so that the sails can be bent to look like they're blowing in the wind. I curled the ends of the wire in just so there weren't any sharp hidden points.

*Glue the wooden dowel to the the top of the sail.

*I like to use tracing paper, but tracing paper won't work on black material. So instead I outlined the pattern with chalk, and then treated that as tracing paper and it worked pretty well.

*Paint design with white acrylic paint.

*Paint the main body of the ship with 2 layers of brown paint.

*Paint the cannon holes black.

*Paint the deck grey.

*Paint the railings, ladder, and masts a lighter brown.

*Add in details: for the main body blend in black lines, for the masts/railings add some light brushes of slightly darker brown, for the deck blend in some lines of black, brown, and a lighter grey.

*To make this into a game, get some candy containers (can be pre-filled, or you can fill with your own goodies).

*Make special marks on only a couple of the containers, I chose to do anchors on 3/20 of the egg containers.

*Place them into the ship through the cannon holes.

*Add some stuffing or other distractions into the boat and mix around.

*Guests will then pull an egg from inside the ship and if they got one of the marked eggs they will get an extra prize. For a kids party this could be a treat or a toy, for an adult party perhaps a drink or a mini bottle of something.

*All done!

*Enjoy your candy, and prize if you pulled one of the marked containers!

*Step back and admire your handiwork!