Pssst...Avast there!

Some day in the not so near future, our basement will be finished, and we will have an entire ROOM dedicated to pirates at Halloween time.  Ooooh just think of the possibilities!  But until then, all we have room for is a little display on our kitchen desk.

It's a humble offering but serves its purpose well.

Mr. Unlucky Hoarder was purchased at local craft store last year.  (He is currently our only resident skeleton, and is fondly dubbed "the crossbones" by my children.)  I made him a little sign made from a small piece of wood (from a whole bag of pre-cut pieces at Walmart), painted black, of course.  Then I printed out a little ditty on my computer (Blackadder font) and mod-podged it on the wood.  

 Nice and simple.

My husband made me the electric candlestick many years back from a candlestick set that used to belong to his Grandparents.  

 

 We bought an electric candle from a craft store and cut the wire so he could feed it through the stick (which was luckily hallow).  Then he put it back together using fancy instruments (there actually is a technical term but I couldn't figure out how to spell it...) and wa-la!  Your own fancy pirate looking electric candlestick!  Although you can't tell from the picture, it uses the cool bulbs that flicker. 

Next up is the treasure chest.  

I found this little beauty at a yard sale and decided it was the perfect miniature size for my display.  I put a plastic grocery bag in the bottom and covered it with a little bit of shiny gold fabric to give it a little more volume (Sadly, I don't have enough jewelry to fill it all up). If I'm ambitious I might raise it up a little more, but the jewelry is already placed so perfectly and I'm not sure I'm willing to arrange it again.  :)

The jewelry came from a variety of places, but mostly from stuff I inherited from both of my Grandmothers.  I also had some jewelry from my younger years (back when gold was incredibly popular) and found a few items from family reunion jewelry swaps.  I think I can safely say that I didn't purchase any of the jewelry, which is an added bonus in my book.

Not a bad hoard, matey.

There are so many fun things you can do with pirates for Halloween.  Get creative!