Make a Pirate Treasure Chest

The year my son turned six, we decided to have a pirate birthday party at the beach. We bought some secondhand jewellery at the op shop and some chocolate coins, and I made a cardboard pirate treasure chest out of recycled boxes and paint to bury the loot in.

I knew what shape and size I wanted, and this post box was a good start. It just needs a higher lid, so I tore the top off a pizza box and cut some extra panels.

I stuck them on with masking tape until it looked right. I left the original hinges and the fastening. I did this stage while my child was at school camp, so he didn’t see it.

I bent the top pieces to look like planks of wood, to help them bend over the curve.

Then I mixed up a brown paint from red, green and a touch of yellow. Brown is the easiest colour to mix! If you blend all your colours (you won’t need black or white, for a colourful sort of brown), you’ll probably end up with brown. I made enough of this paint to give the outside of the box one good coat. Some areas with writing got another quick coat as the paint dried. I pulled the brush in the direction of the ‘wood grain’.

There was some writing on the inside too, so I decided to do that black because it would show up the jewels better (and I’d run out of the brown colour). While my child was in bed a few nights later, I quickly coated the inside of the treasure box.

I also added some gold corners and a painted on lock. I was going to fashion a real lock for the box and padlock it, but I ran out of time.

I filled it with sparkling pirate treasure: gold chocolate coins and secondhand jewellery we’d collected from the op shop. This was my favourite bit! So pretty! Then I hid the filled box on a high shelf.

I wrote clues that six year olds could read by themselves, and rolled them into scrolls.

On the day, I gave them the first clue and a story about a hidden treasure chest, and they all raced over the sand to find the clues. I had to point them in the right direction a few times! Past the pirate ship in the sand…

There were just four clues, in fairly obvious places. This was plenty!

The treasure chest had been buried in the sand inside a cloth bag, and the spot marked with an x made of driftwood. The sand flew as the children all dug it out.

Then the pirate treasure was shared around. I didn’t get a photo of that bit, because I was trying to make sure the coins didn’t get hoarded. That’s a lot of fun for $4 of chocolate coins and a handful of old jewellery!