Top Five Summer Party Ideas

School’s out!  Party on!  The best part of summer is relaxation in the warm weather, so why not create a few fun summer parties for all your friends to enjoy?  Take advantage of the warm weather and plan a few outdoor parties!  The easiest way to do so is by picking a theme and simply altering your party just enough for the theme to work outdoors rather than indoors.  Here are a few ideas:

1.) Luau Summer Pool Party:   Break out the bathing suits, Hawaiian shirts, leis, and grass skirts!  What better way to ring in summer than with a pool party?  Provide all your guests with a coconut cup filled with a tropical punch-flavored slushy drink and at least one lei to throw around their neck.   In addition to those fun luau favors, give your female guests grass skirts and flowers to put in their hair!  Scatter a few palm tree coolers around your yard to give guests a place to find more cold beverages once their slushy drink is gone.  What are your options if you don’t have a pool?  Use a sprinkler and your garden hose!

2.) Backyard Summer Barbecue:  While, yes, it seems to go hand-in-hand with the luau pool party, it’s just different enough to be a second great summer party.  Plan a menu first: pulled pork sandwiches (barbecue or not), corn (on or off the cob), and fruit would make a great, summery combination.  Decorate your tables with a classic barbecue red gingham table cover and provide fun plates, napkins, and utensils.  Then, as your guests sit at their tables to enjoy their food, serve another cool summer treat: a sherbet float in a goblet with a fun squiggle straw!  Just pour lemon-lime soda over two or three scoops of rainbow sherbet ice cream.  It’s a fun, fruity twist on a classic summer favorite, the root beer float.

3.) Fifties Drive-in Summer Picnic:  This is where the classic root beer floats and black cows (a cola poured over vanilla ice cream) from the fifties come into play!  Decorate your tables with a float candle and serve your guests both yummy ice cream beverage in classic soda shop glass that your guests can take home as a fun summer favor.  A few other great favor ideas are plush dice that your guests can hang from their rearview mirrors (especially if they have fun, old-fashioned cars that they’ve worked to restore), classic black sunglasses for the men, and diamond cat sunglasses for the women.

4.) Carnival Summer Party:  Summertime equals festivals, parades, theme parks, and carnivals!  Every teenager looks forward to a summer trip to a theme park to ride roller coasters and eat the amazing junk food that appears at every theme park across America.  Why not bring a fun, carnival-like junk food alley to your backyard?  When your guests arrive at your party, greet them at the entrance and place a sparkly wrist band on them so they can feel like it’s a private carnival rather than simply a summer carnival party.  Also, give each guest a carnival favor box that they can decorate to hold their candy as they play games.  Plan a wide variety of carnival games for every guest to participate in.  When it comes to thinking of prizes for the games, hand out candy at each game booth.  Keep a concession stand open for your guest to come find food and snacks, such as banana splits in dessert servers and popcorn in popcorn bags.

5.)  Pirate Summer Party: This will give your guests a bit of a twist on a classic summer beach party.  When you send out party invitations, include a note that requests your guests to attend in a pirate costume—this is a great way to have a costume party in the summertime!  Invite your guests to participate in a treasure hunt, with rewards along the way.  Then, give them pirate pouches to keep those rewards (or their pirate booty) in.  At the end, when your guests get to the treasure chest, they can arrive to find it filled with yummy ice cream treats and popsicles!  A word to the wise: wait as long as possible to hide this.  Send your guests on a wild goose chase to the front of the house, thinking you hid the treasure there. Then, when they get back to the central party area and see the chest, they’ll be shocked!

There are many other ways to ring in summer and many other fun summer party ideas to plan.  Just remember the keys of summer and your planning will go easier: fun games, warm weather, and cool frozen treats will make your friends and guests love every summer party that you host.

If Ye Be Hostin’ a Pirate Party for Grownup Buccaneers

The 4th Pirates of the Caribbean movie is coming out in a few months… International Talk Like a Pirate Day is September 19…Somebody’s birthday is coming up…You have relatives in Pittsburgh…Halloween will be here before you know it! Whew! If you need an excuse to throw a pirate-themed party, you won’t have far to look!

Need more reasons? Piratefestivals.com lists about 100 communities in the US and Canada that host annual pirate festivals and faires. Pirates are hot, and ShindigZ Party offers a full line of Pirate Party Supplies for partying on boat deck, backyard deck and elsewhere.

We’ve posted a-plenty on children’s pirate parties, but now offer some ideas for the adult buccaneer.

Pirate Party Decorations

Point your spyglass toward the Treasure Bay or Pirates Cove collections for large pirate decoration pieces such as ships and palm trees. Dig up a treasure chest prop and plenty of fishnet, raffia and colorful tissue parrots. Use a skull-and-crossbones flag to mark the party spot, or one of our pirate banners that you can personalize with event information.

For evening functions, we are loving the lighting effects of our safe Table Torch Decoration and Hanging Flaming Torch!

Pirate Party Activities

Haul in affordable scarves, vests and other pirate wearables in adult sizes at ShindigZ Party. With everyone so garbed, send guests into town on a scavenger treasure hunt.

For additional grownup activities, we recommend visiting websites such asTalkLikeAPirate.com, where you can generate hilarious pirate names and personas for all of your guests, pick up new recipes for grog, and learn a sea chantey or two.

Aaarghh! Best get ye to collectin’ yer booty for the big bash, Matey!

Yarrr, Throw Your Child a Pirate Themed Party

Pirate Ship Decoration

Ahoy, Matey! Looking for a unique party to throw for your son or daughter? Have your child invite all of his or her pals over for a pirate theme bash!

Kids will love dressing up like a pirate to celebrate your child’s birthday. You can also provide them with costume pieces, like clip on gold earrings, pirate hats and toy swords.

At the party, there are a lot of ways you can spice things up! Host a treasure hunt around your yard. Give each of your child’s guest a treasure map and have them hunt for chocolate coins or a pinata in the shape of a pirate ship.

For an extra special party, you could by a themed background of a pirate ship parked in “treasure bay.”

Other available pirate party supplies, like pirate goblets, figurines and balloons, will add to the swashbuckling atmosphere. Fishnet and pirate cutouts will turn your home into a pirate ship in no time!

Top everything off with some tissue palm trees, a beach background and a few “Beware of Pirate” signs and you’ve got yourself a fantastic pirate fiesta!

ShindigZ Customers Take to the Lake for a Pirate Party

A ShindigZ customer tells us about her pirate themed boating party:

Dear ShindigZ,

This summer our family threw a Pirate Themed Party using your products to decorate our boat like a real pirate ship. We dressed up in costumes—even the dogs—and hit the lake for an awesome day. Your products were great for all of the decorating and accessorizing our costumes!

We made some pirate sails using carpet tubes and black fabric. We made sure to paint the tubes a dark brown or black so they looked like real wood. Using rope we attached the fabric like sails and lashed the masts to the boat. We topped each of the masts with a pirate flag and a skull and cross bones mylar balloon.

We lined the boat with brown fabric, covering the white interior so it looked more like a pirate ship. Then, we added a treasure chest to the boat to hold snacks. It added an extra realistic touch and was a really fun way to make space on the boat. We also added a captain’s wheel to the back of the boat for a finishing touch.

Once the boat was decorated, we got busy dressing up ourselves! We dressed up in pirate costumes with pirate party hats and pirate scarves. We blew up inflatable parrots to perch on our shoulders and added fake scars or gold teeth to our outfits.

Some Captain Jack Sparrow hats and beards were big hits with our sons and their friends. The girls had a great time pretending to walking the plank and playing with the dogs who were dressed up in pirate dog costumes.

Our pirate party was a big hit and we couldn’t have done it without your pirate party decorations!

Thanks,
Susan

Reasons to Host a Party this September

After Labor Day, there’s still plenty of reasons to party in September!

September 11th, or Patriot Day, is a day that really stands out on the calendar. Commemorate the day, remember our heroes, or come together as a community with a patriotic party. There are tons of patriotic party supplies perfect for the occasion. These decorations are great for fundraisers and community service events as well! Use a celestial arches to decorate the doorway to your party or patriotic event. The Statue of Liberty Standee or Life Sized Uncle Sam Standee make for great photo ops.

Send your personalized patriotic message with a custom vinyl banner. Our banners are made out of havy-duty, weather-resistant vinyl and are available in seven different sizes with or without metal grommets, perfect for all your decorating needs. Check out the patriotic banner selection for tons of ideas.

Check out all our Patriotic Party TipZ for more ideas!

September 19th is National Talk Like a Pirate Day, a cult-favorite holiday. Host a pirate party to celebrate the day! Decorate with a Pirate Insta-Theme or any of our awesome theme decorations. Encourage guests to come in pirate costumes and serve snacks on pirate tableware. Check out our Pirate Party TipZ for tons of tips for hosting the perfect pirate party.

Other reasons to celebrate this month:

Hispanic Heritage Month * Southern Gospel Music Month * Rosh Hashanah * 3- Bath Tub Race Day * 6- Fight Procrastination Day * 9- Grandparent’s Day * 11- Patriot Day and No News is Good News Day * 15- Wife Appreciation Day * 15- America’s Day for Kids * 16- National Student Day * 16- Trail of Tears Commemoration Day * 19- National Talk Like a Pirate Day * 19- Wool Day (Great for a knitter’s circle party!) * 21- POW/MIA Remembrance Day * 21- World Gratitude Day * 23- Checkers Day * 25- World Maritime Day * 25- National One-Hit Wonder Day (Host a 50’s or Rock and Roll Party) * 26- Good Neighbor Day * 26- National Pancake Day * 28- Love Note Day *

Round Up the Mates with Pirate Invitations

After selecting this theme for your party, choose a slogan to use in your invitations and in tying in decorations and personalized favors for your pirate theme. Find the perfect slogan for your party by trying one of the following, or by thinking of one that suits your swashbuckler.

• “Shiver Me Timbers…Jacob is 5!”
• “Yo Ho, Yo Ho…A Pirate Party for Me!”
• “Patrick’s Peg Leg Party!”
• “Buccaneer Bash!”
• “Ship Ahoy Matey…Join us for Swashbuckling Fun!”

Send your invitations out 3-4 weeks before the party. Choose one of the following invitations to let your young guests know that they can expect lots of mayhem and adventure:

The Pirate Party Tableware Ensemble contains an invite that is perfect for this theme. Address each invite to “Captain Wilder” (guest’s last name).

As an alternative, send a message in a bottle from the high seas! Roll the invitation up, and tie it with a small piece of green curling ribbon or raffia (seaweed). Add the invite to an empty water bottle (label removed). Add about 4 tablespoons of sand to each bottle, and a few small seashells. One shell necklace can be cut apart, and will provide enough shells for about 10-12 invites. “Shiver me timbers and bless my soul, we need you to party…Max is 5 years old!” or “Chase needs your help to swab the Poop Deck at…” Hand deliver the bottles or pay extra postage to send them through the mail.

The next step is decorating! Check out pirate party decorating tips.