Paper Pirate Swords

A while ago I figured out how to make cute little rapier type swords from rolled up tubes of newspaper. I added the revelation to the bottom of another blog post here. Well, we whipped up a few of them for the pirate-superhero-mermaid party.

Each sword is two sheets of newspaper rolled up on the diagonal and folded over and taped to make the handle, then an oval of cardboard for the hilt and a couple of strips of cardboard wrapped around the bottom of the blade and taped to keep the hilt on. I had about half a can of white spray paint and a tiny amount of silver spray paint left over from another project, so I sprayed the swords with what was left to cover up the newsprint a bit. They weren't exactly silver, but none of the kids seemed to care. I decorated each of the hilts a little differently with a silver marker pen.

The kids had a whale of a time with the swords and no one was hurt at all at the party. Paul was somewhat picked on, but he's a big boy and at 32 I think he could handle it. I love the picture of him on the phone trying to give one of our mates directions to the park we were at, whilst fending off a hoard of pirate mermaid superheros!