Argh, Mateys! A Pirate Treasure Hunt Part 2

Part 2: Making a Treasure Chest, Filling It, and Finding It

You may have read the first installation of this Pirate Treasure Hunt post, “Part 1: Making Clues & a Map“. Or maybe you remember that I made a pirate-themed treasure hunt on the beach for the kids on a past vacation. Or maybe you just stumbled here by accident. Whatever the case, I’m glad you’re here! This is the second installation of my Pirate Treasure Hunt post and includes how I made this year’s treasure chest and what the treasure included. This year, I stepped up my game.

First, here’s what you need to make a pirate treasure chest:
-A styrofoam ice chest
-Brown & gold acrylic paint
-Foam paint brushes
-Treasure (more about that below)

I was looking for an inexpensive, lightweight treasure chest. I wasn’t interested in buying or building something made of wood and lugging it to South Carolina so when I saw this pin by www.geauxevents.com on Pinterest I squealed! A painted ice chest! Perfect!

I found a Styrofoam chest for $4.19 at the local hardware store. I wanted a little more of an antique look than the pin I found so I bought metallic gold paint instead of yellow. Using my acrylic paints, foam brushes, and the pic above as my guide, I set to work painting.

I did the metallic parts first, figuring it would be easier to make a clean line with dark brown over the lighter gold color.

It took one little bottle of metallic gold paint and two little bottles of brown to cover the chest and lid nicely. Unfortunately I never snapped a pic of the chest when it was all said and done. This is the closest I got – it still needed a second coat. Sorry!

When it was dry it was time for the fun part – loading in the treasure! Obviously you can use whatever best fits the ages and stages of the kids who are on your hunt. The last time I did it the treasure was:
-Bubbles
-Lots of coins
-Coloring supplies
-Beaded Mardi Gras type necklaces
-Gold chocolate coins

This time around I used:
–Pirate’s Booty: Aged White Cheddar (so delicious, by the way!)
-Gold chocolate coins
-Beaded Mardi Gras type necklaces
-Plastic pirate figurines
-Glow in the dark swords

And since we’re from Pittsburgh and this was a pirate-themed hunt, I added some Pittsburgh Pirates treasure. A big thanks to my awesome mother-in-law, my awesome friend Emily and her brother-in-law Neil for the following:
-Pittsburgh Pirates t-shirts
-A soft-sided insulated Pittsburgh Pirates cooler
-A signed Pittsburgh Pirates Neil Walker baseball card
-A signed Pittsburgh Pirates Neil Walker baseball

Told you I stepped up my game this year. 🙂

If you remember from this post, Matey or Lady?, there was also a gender reveal message in a bottle at the bottom of the chest.

Wow! Lots and lots of fun was had when the kids finally followed the map and found this box of awesomeness buried on the beach. For the record, the lid of this styrofoam chest won’t stand up to a six-year-old diligently searching for treasure. I guess my hubby and brother-in-law hid it pretty well. My nephew Ty was the (un)lucky one who “found” it and then promptly ate sand. He even lost a shoe! Haha! Sorry buddy!