Pirate Party Serving Boats

find the baskets here

    See the boats AT the party here

The pirate party preparations are well underway.   Since we have been having an office Margaritaville party for years and years and years...and I took over the job...I try to switch the theme around every year.  Last year was a Hawaiian themed twist.  It's been a parrot/sufer themed twist ; it's been a Mexican themed twist.  The theme just has to revolve around palm trees.  
     I usually shop around for boat serving pieces (that can also be used in nautical themes).
But, when I ran across these three baskets, I knew I had to get them.  I have a wooden row boat with separate compartments in which I serve crackers, but these are wide open baskets.   The baskets measure 29', 25", and 21" in length.    I checked my bag of lumber pieces left over from previous projects.  Thankfully, I had them in three sizes to fit in the bottom of each basket.  I drilled holes the diameter of the dowel masts, glued the dowels into the holes, and sprayed them with brown paint.  I also sprayed smaller diameter dowels (which are the length of each basket) brown.  I tied those on with kitchen twine.
  I had linen left over from a wedding I had helped plan a few years back.  It was perfect for the sails.  I sewed the sides of the rectangles on my sewing machine to make finished edges.  Then I hand stitched the top edge over the cross dowels using a slip stitch on the backs of the sails.  I did the same for the top sail, which is attached to only one dowel. After stitching it on top, I took large running stitches up both sides and the middle.  Then I gathered up the sails on these, stitched, and secured the thread.
       I am going to fill the boats with three different kinds of bar cookies.  If you go to Pinterest and look my up under FunJani, I have a bar cookie board started.