Last month our family traveled to Destin, Florida for our summer vacation. The week before we left, I put together a “buried treasure” kit for my son to find.

I started out by driving over to Party City on my lunch break, where for $4, I was able to find a metal lunchbox shaped like a treasure chest. A few aisles down, I picked up a pack of plastic casino chips for $6 that look like gold coins.

Next, headed over to PetCo and for another $6, I found an actual buffalo antler.

Knowing that my 6 and a half year-old son was already preoccupied by the idea of finding a dinosaur bone or a saber tooth tiger’s tooth, I then headed over to PetCo and for another $6, I found an actual buffalo antler.

Lastly, I found a paper bag in the recycle bin at work, and tore part of it into the shape of a sheet of paper.

Now that I had all the supplies, I finalized the items.

I got a hold of some matte black spray paint to cover up the Disney cartoon theme of the metal lunch box. Then I threw it down several times on the concrete, to give it a more rustic look.

Afterwards, I wrote a letter, as a pirate from 1700’s, explaining that my treasure was buried nearby. Using a lighter from a friend, I then singed the edges of the letter, then splashed it in water to help make it look a couple hundred years old.

Fast forward a few days and several hundred miles later: I threw the items in my old Gap backpack from college. As my son played in the sand just about 15 feet away, with his back turned to me, I dug 2 separate holes in the sand, about 6 feet apart; one for the treasure chest filled with gold coins and the pirate’s letter on top of them, and the other one for the “saber tooth”.

As you can imagine, it was quite an adventure!

And that’s how it’s done.

Now, if you found this blog post to be interesting and relevant, I hereby invite you to read another blog post I did, which shows the pictures of the actual event taking place.

Click here to check it out.