dalek pirate party invitations

I really wanted to do a pirate party for Oliver’s 7th birthday this year.. he was fairly keen on the idea but his main obsession is Doctor Who, and Daleks in particular.. so I thought, why not combine the two – so we are having a Dalek pirate party!

I designed some pirate daleks, with (of course!) hooks instead of the usual sucker arm! I also designed a dalek ‘skull and crossbones’. I designed them to be made into stencils, these are going to end up getting stencilled onto all kinds of stuff for the party!

First task – invitations.. I based the layout of these on the dinosaur invitations I designed for Oli’s 5th birthday. I printed the stencil designs onto card, and cut them out with my trusty craft knife..



I had this idea that I could paint the stencils with a couple layers of mod podge, which I thought would strengthen and seal the card stencils. It kind of worked.. the only thing was, I was doing this in a rush – we had to get them made up and given out before the end of the school term. So the mod podge was not really 100% dry when the kids and I started on the stencilling! This actually helped I think, because the stencils were a little tacky so they stuck to the paper while we stencilled!
(I imagine this is a bit like using freezer paper to stencil onto fabric – I just bought some freezer paper to try this out on some stuff for the party!)

Cyan did the paint for the dalek ‘skull and crossbones’ on the fronts, and Oli painted the dalek stencils.



I designed the other parts of the invitations with a parchment paper background which I mocked up in photoshop, I printed these onto standard white printer paper, and roughly tore the edges. Karl and I then had a rather late night (I should say early morning!) singeing all the edges and sticking the invitations together.. I love Karl so much for humouring and helping me in my crafty madness!



I did have fun coming up with the dalek/piratey wording.. which Oli loved!







I have so many ideas for this party, I have researched some fantastic games to play, and have some fun ideas for food.. we are going to transform our backyard into a pirate ship (hopefully – weather permitting), with sails, dalek pirate flags, a deck made from pallets..



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