A pirate treasure chest and some gold doubloons

Both children are very into Jake and the Neverland Pirates at the moment. I'm not sure exactly how it suddenly entered our life, but we are planning a Disney holiday soon and I think that my husband is trying to make sure that their Disney knowledge is complete by putting on Disney Junior at every opportunity. It's not a bad programme, although I have noticed that Harry is starting to speak American ("I sure can!"). Recently I blogged about the pirate treasure map that we made, and our next task was to make some gold doubloons.

I bought this plain pirate treasure chest at the same time as I bought my butterfly box, and this seemed like the right opportunity to decorate it. They seem to pop up on sale regularly in Hobbycraft and I've used them for a variety of crafts - I also covered one in ribbon.

I stuck some yellow foam strips around the edges, then Harry glued some plastic jewels all over it. I've not watched Jake and his friends a great deal (when it's on I'm usually to be found making the most of some quiet time) but I know that one of the objectives of each episode is to collect and count the gold doubloons.

I did a quick search through Google images and found a skull and crossbones picture which I placed inside an olive wreath image,then printed out a sheet of them. Then we cut out circles from gold cardboard and stuck the pirate picture on. Harry has been having lots of fun hiding the treasure chest for me to find, and then counting out his pirate money.

If you want to make some pretend money to fill a play treasure chest you might like my instructions for salt dough pirate treasure.