I have been planning pirate parties since the birth of my third child in 2003. During midnight nursings I began to mull the idea of starting a Party-in-a-Box business. From that initial notion, my main objective was to provide an entertaining and engaging party for a very modest price. I was and still am amazed at the expense parents go through to hold a birthday party. My own daughter, for example, asked that for her fifth birthday she have a bowling party followed by a spa make over and then a home party including cake – Wow! All that! It was from that experience, an experience shared by countless parents, that I passionately pursued my cost effective party planning business and have never looked back!

First, while still on maternity leave, I went shopping and bought a very large quantity of craft supplies and fabric from two shops closing their doors. My imagination soared and I began sewing a variety of costumes, banners and props. Soon, my party business was renting Pirate, Princess, Tea Party, Winnie the Pooh, and 1950s party boxes. With each rental, the party boxes improved and expanded. The Pirate Party-in-a-Box was the most popular as groups ranging from Boy Scouts to Sunday school classes enjoyed the swashbuckling and plank-walking.

Wanting to expand the number of party themes I could offer, I became a consultant with A Perfect Party by Cody in 2004 and continue to sell party supplies online at www.partybug.ca. Learning advertising on the internet was a learning curve so steep that it went backwards at first but my experience renting party supplies and costumes helped me immensely and eventually heightened my creative side and led me towards an obvious book topic.

In 2006 I completed a book publishing course. My first attempts at book writing were to create books for beginner Google adword users. But it didn’t take long before the book lurking under the stairs in the Pirate Party box surfaced again.

I had noticed a niche for single theme party books. Most party guides on the shelves include a variety of party themes while only giving a couple of pages to pirate parties specifically. To begin, I took everything pirate related stored under the stairs and brought it into the kitchen to inspire me while I was writing. The heaps of pirate props and costumes stayed in the kitchen for months (much to my husband’s dismay) and were always in use. My children and their friends would pick costume items out of the baskets in the kitchen and run around the house as pirates. My youngest daughter would run around the house yelling “Arrr” while squinting through one eye at everyone. School buddies were handed baguettes and sword fights erupted around the kitchen.

Most importantly, making the book became quality time with my children. We filled the kitchen with ingredients for the recipes or drink we were testing. The kids and I would gather around the kitchen island completely covered with ingredients or cookie dough, surrounded by decorations and cake mixes, tasting the icing or watermelons. We would mix, savor, create, adjust and rewrite each recipe together. We would be totally engrossed in our projects and ultimately the humor and laughter flowed directly into Pirate Party!.

When I’m not building parties, the majority of my time is taken up with my work as a Board Certified Psychiatric Pharmacist in a Mental Health Hospital. Aside from Mental Health, I have a keen interest in asthma and COPD and am a Certified Asthma Educator and a Spirometry technician. My four days a week career keeps me full and I always strive to keep up to date on the drugs and treatments. On top of all that, I completed my first triathlon in the summer of 2007.