My son's sixth birthday is rapidly approaching. He's told me that he wants a pirate theme this year. This fits in with his latest obsession, which is as you might have guessed, pirates.
I've been looking around for some ideas for a sort of crafty thing the boys could do at the party. Making their own swords is one option, but not all parents are OK with any sort of weapon. Then I came across a simply fabulous idea for making a really simple pirate's hat.
It is based on a tri-corner hat, the kind they used to wear in the British Royal Navy in the 1700s, and in colonial America. And indeed, by pirates in the Caribbean.
Inspiration for this came from finding this template or pattern for a Colonial Tri-Corner Hat.
To do this project you will need:
- cardboard
- plain paper
- marker pen
- stapler
- scissors
- sticky tape or glue
I've used black A4 sheets of card, which I bought in a pack from WH Smith. This cost me £3.49, and you get 24 sheets in the pack. For the party, I'll try shopping around for something cheaper. You don't have to use this though. Any sort of stiff but flexible card will do, and then it can be painted or coloured with crayon later. This would make a good rainy day activity in the half term.
Now you can print out the template for this hat. I don't have a printer at home at the moment, so using it's design as a guide, I made my own on a sheet of scrap white paper. These are rejects from an office printer that I get from a friend of mine. Great for drawing on, and projects like this.
The advantage of using A4 sheets is that you can use two of the straight edges. My son's head is a little bit too small for the entire length of an A4 sheet. We tried this out and even with lots of adjusting it still kept sliding down his head.
Once you have your template, use it to cut out three copies from the black card. You should be able to get two from each sheet. I trimmed the edges down to make a nicer, smoother shape a little bit.
When you have the three sides, staple each together (see pictures at the bottom of the page).
And there you have it, a tri-corner hat. For a bit of pirate trimmings, you can stick a few extras on there. You could take your inspiration from Captain Jack Sparrow, aka Johnny Depp, in the movies series Pirates of the Caribbean. This would be easy enough to do - scuff the card up a bit using dark coloured crayons. Stick on some braiding and rags and maybe use a bit of wool to make it look like his rather unkempt hair.
I tried to do a skull and crossbones. I figured that these could be just stuck on the hats by the kids. In this example, I had a go at drawing one myself. And actually, if you have older children, this could work out quite successfully. It is surprisingly easy to get the general shape of a skull and crossbones.
However, given the age range of 5 to 6 year olds, for future use I'll print out lots of different types of skull and crossbones, and other pirate decorations, that they can stick on the hats themselves.
Comments