Our Pirate Ship is DONE… and just in time for Halloween. My husband had this crazy idea last year of building a pirate ship in our front yard, but we didn’t plan very well and ended up not having the time to really put it together right. This year, we started the planning much earlier… and boy, was there some heavy duty planning going on.
If you’ve been following me on Facebook and Twitter, you’ve probably seem my countless posts about Home Depot and Lowes. We’ve been spending most weekends there trying to figure out what materials we would need to build this thing. After a lot of trial and error, we bought our supplies and we made it work.
Did it come out as well as we’d hoped? It did.
It all started with this…
I have to say, my husband is definitely handy with a tool (take that as you may).
Surprisingly, it only took us one weekend to really put the bulk of it together. Once we were on a roll, it was hard to stop. We decided to just build a frame with the wood and then cover it all with burlap.
The anchor was easy. I drew a picture of an anchor onto black foamcore board and just cut it out with a craft knife. Then, I spray painted it silver, leaving some of the black showing through. We bought the chains at a local Halloween store and hung one each on either side of the ship.
The treasure chest was one of my favorite parts to this whole thing. We racked our brains trying to come up with a way of creating a chest, but then I walked into Walmart and voila… they were selling a black plastic storage chest. I ended up taping the parts that I wanted to keep black with blue painters tape and I spray painted the “bands” with the same silver spray paint I used for the anchor. The “treasure” is just colored beads and gold coins that I bought from the Dollar Store and Party City.
I am not a huge fan of carving pumpkins, but when we saw this skull and crossbones cookie cutter in Williams Sonoma, I knew I needed this for my pumpkin. How awesome do cookie cutters work for carving? AWESOME!
I love our Pirate Flag. We put this up every year at Halloween. We bought it a few years ago when we went to The Pirate Adventure in Buena Park. This is what really sparked the entire pirate-theme idea.
David wanted something really scary for the front of the ship. We decided to use this old mask he’s had for a few years. He used to go around on Halloween night wearing it and scaring the you-know-what out of all the little kids. I had to beg him to take it off because he looked so menacing in it.
We lucked out when we found this full-size skeleton at Target about a month ago. It was the last one they had and we snatched it up, not realizing that all the skeletons we saw after that were way more expensive than what we got this one for. Chalk one up for Target and their amazing Halloween decorations. The clothes we got at Goodwill.
This is what the ship looks like at night. I have to say, it’s pretty awesome when the strobe lights are on and the spooky pirate music is playing. Oh yes… we go ALL out. The last thing I made was the sail. David took PVC pipe and put together the mast. I took a sheet and painted on the skull and swords (not too bad for drawing it freehand). We added some orange lights to the top of the ship… for decoration AND for safety. Oh, we also put a black light in our porch wall sconce. And there you have it: Halloween at the Wests!
How are you celebrating Halloween?
that is so cool! I love it. do you think you’ll do it again next year?
Ha ha! The husband wants to, but I’d like to do something different. We’ll see.
Dan says
Absolutely amazing!
It looks awesome!!!!!!!! Great job! Will you all be in costume too?
We will. We all have pirate costumes and the kids will be walking back and forth on the roof scaring people.
That is SO COOL!
Hubby says
It was fun to do! Hope to add even more things for next year.
I love it! That’s awesome, are all of you dressing as pirates?
You bet we are. I’ll have photos either later tonight or tomorrow of all of us.
How fun and creative. I loved seeing all the pictures.
So COOL! I wish I was trick-or-treating in your neighborhood!
We actually have a great neighborhood to trick-or-treat in. People come from all over the city to our hood. It’s pretty cool.
What fun! I’m impressed with how well the burlap worked as the sides of your ship. Very creative use of materials.
Thank you. We looked at everything and the burlap was the least expensive.
Wow, great job! I wish I was near your neighborhood, we have no decor on this side of the world. 😉
Karen B. says
Wow, this is amazing. Your Facebook posts don’t do justice to how fantastic and creative this is.
The extent of my decorations this year, was a wooden pumpkin my neighbor hung on my door, and a owl-witch I bought at CVS for $2.50 yesterday morning.
Next year, I better do it up more!
Thank you for sharing such inspiration.
Thank you. My husband is already talking about doing it again next year… but I’m not so sure.
That is AWESOME! I wish I could have seen it in person.
Totally amazing!
I just do lights .. no time for spooky creative stuff (sigh!).
Monica.
That is so amazing!! I can only dream that hubby gets into the holiday spirit like this when pumpkin is older. You guys did an amazing job! Hope you can save it for next year!
I bet that you had the best house on the block! Now how are you going to top it for next year?
Awesome Job David and Carolyn! It turned out so great, our kids would love it if we did something like this……
That is AWESOME! We haven’t gone “all out” yet with Halloween but wow you and your family have inspired me!!!
How much fun is this!!!!
I seriously want to do that next year! I bet it was fun for everyone.
It was fun… the best part was seeing everyone’s reaction who came trick-or-treating to the house. We’ll have to start gathering ideas for next year.