May the 4th Be With You

May 4th... Star Wars Day. I find it all too funny that the big "Star Wars Day" is coming at about the same time as I am preparing for Jonah's Star Wars themed birthday party in a couple of weeks. The theme is running thick here lately! Here are a few sneak peeks of some of the things I've got in the works!

The invitations went out a couple of weeks ago...

I saw these done on this site and replicated them myself with a little creative use of my Sure Cuts A Lot program and the Cricut. The kids LOVED them! I made an extra one to put in his baby book, but *sniff sniff* this is the last birthday that's in his baby book! It only goes up to the 5th birthday. I guess he'll be an official "big kid" after this. :'(

Of the awesome deals I racked up at Target when they had 50% off coupons for Star Wars toys, I picked up the Star Wars Operation game. That's going to be our opening activity... tinkering with the droid where we will find our mission to help Obi Wan Kenobi destroy the Death Star. hehe These younglings will need to become Padawans and train to become Jedis before they can do that though! :)

Our friend, Oscar, has graciously agreed to be our Jedi Master for the day, to teach these younglings the ways of the Force! :) (freeing me up to take pictures! woot!)

Shortly after he agreed to do that for us, I saw this picture and knew I was going to HAVE to have little Jedi robes for all of the boys. ;) 

 I used this tutorial and got some $3.99 fabric half off at Joann's. I have to give a huge thank you to my mom, who helped me cut/press/sew all 6 of these!

 Despite his attitude of not wanting me to interrupt Wow Wow Wubzy to have him try it on 2-3 times during the process, he really does love his Jedi robes.

 Here's a view of the little hood in the back.

There they are, all 6 of them made for less than $30 and in about a day and half's time.

Building your own light saber is somewhat of a rite of passage for every young Jedi, so after they don their robes, we'll have several different sized, pre-cut, strips of electrical tape to choose from to design their light saber's handle. Once they've done that, they can head out back to do some more training with Jedi Master Oscar before graduating from the Jedi Academy and having cake.

They'll "fly off" in the Millennium Falcon, fight their way past the storm troopers, and then take on Darth Vader before heading on to destroy the Death Star...

A basketball pinata spray painted grey. I still have some work to do, painting on the other details, but it's a start. 

  Knowing the pool noodle light sabers and even the plastic Darth Vader light saber wouldn't be strong enough to bust open our Death Star, I painted a wooden dowel rod to look like Yoda's. That should do the trick! ;)

Can't wait to show you more pictures after we've actually had the party. It's shaping up to be just as epic as the Halloween party was, if that's possible! 

My Epic Star Wars Party

About two years ago, our friends hosted a Star Wars watching party and we got our nerd on while watching episodes 4,5, and 6. We always said we'd have to have a 2nd party to watch the other 3. Life happened.Then Pinterest came along. I found a super cool Lego Death Star Ornament, last spring, so it got me thinking, "We REALLY need to have Part 2 of our party, so I have an excuse to make these!" That's where it all started. When we couldn't find a good time during the summer to have it, we decided to combine it with Halloween. Since there are so many pictures on this post, I'll try to keep my babble brief, but this party was essentially an all day affair going from 10am-10pm! My good friend Audrey was a rock star with her fancy camera and took most of these pictures for me.

The Decorations:

There of course had to be the death star pumpkin as the main attraction! And yes, it did take as long as it looks like it did... about 8 hours of carving. BTW, if you want a pumpkin to last for more than 2-3 days, click here to learn how to bleach bathe your pumpkin! This photo was taken a week after I started carving it!

My kids always get mini pumpkins at the patch we go to, as part of admission, so it's our tradition to decorate them to look like the costume they are wearing that year. 

 My 4 year old son even got in on the decorating action and gave us this awesome Yoda on the chalkboard!
 ;) I talked him through it, but it was all him drawing.

I will admit, I used a lot of stuff printed from the Internet. I can't guarantee I didn't violate some rules, but it was personal use and this party was on a shoestring budget. All of my signage was created by me using this wallpaper sample as a background, and adding a yellow frame in photoshop. The cereal labels were photoshopped from the product info.

 Since the party was going to last all day, I hid a few "Easter eggs" around for our guests to discover throughout the party, like the artistic Star Wars Character portraits in the public bathroom, and the x-wing fighter made out of office supplies. One of the Easter eggs that no one ever found, though, was the Death Star backdrop I had behind the fish tank glass.

The Breakfast Food:

 If you don't know how to read Aurebesh, that sign says, "Imperial Cereal Bar" with Count Dookula, Troop Loops, and Wampa's Hothsted Flakes. Apparently Kellogg's really has made these and more!

I made a stack of light sabers (spoons wrapped in napkins) for our cereal bar over a week before the party. Here's the link to the free printable napkin rings.

 Care for some Java the Cup? There was blue milk creamer, and a couple of fan boy references for the sugar and splenda (which my friend says is poison).

 Tied some blank tags to the cups for writing names on them. There were also some Obi Wan Kabobies (fruit kabobs like these) that didn't get pictured.

The Lunch/Dinner Food:

 Han Burger Sliders with a big Jar Jar of Pickles along with all the other condiments.

 Darth Tater Tots and Princess Lays to go with the burgers.

Jabba the Cup (of applesauce) was another great Pinterest find. :) I opted to simplify their design though.

Later in the evening we whipped up some Coruscant Rolls.

And because the sweets were overtaking us all, we steamed some broccoli trees from the Dagobah Forest.

The Sweets:

The Chewy Chips Ahoy were store bought obviously, but I love me some CCA. And can I just say, I frickin' LOVE the Playskool Star Wars action figures they have out right now?! We bought the Han and Chewy set, but I'm sure we'll get more for his birthday this year... he's already decided he wants a Star Wars birthday party in May. However, I can assure you, an all day party for adult fans is a completely different beast than a 2 hour party for six 5 year olds. I've already started the planning though. It'll be super fun too!

 Wampa puffs were made with just a little creative frosting on top of some ghost Peeps.

Qui-Gon Gingersnaps were also store bought, but with everything else we had going on, that's ok. ;)

 Carbonite Jello, and yes Han is dishwasher safe apparently. :)

Admiral Akbar's Snack Bar (this was on a shelf over the whole table, which I don't have a picture of) the subtitle says "It's a trap!" - famous quote from Akbar. The little characters in the frame were another pinterest find, but I had to rearrange them in photoshop to fit my frame.

There are also some Han Rolos and Cloud City ( or you can call them Bespin Pops if you've got some hardcore fan boys who'll get the reference). I got the idea from this blog, but did them in a very different way. Mine are ghost marshmallows turned sideways on a skewer and drizzled with white chocolate.

Some of our guests brought things too, like this AWESOME Tatooine Sand Cake (think Oreo dirt cake but made with the vanilla creme cookies instead.) DELISH! Audrey left it with us, so I probably ended up eating nearly a 1/4 of this over the course of the week!

Sarah Jenne brought the 12 Parsec Salad (Carrot Parsnip salad seen in back), decorated her own Death Star Cookie Cake, and...

these chocolate bars made with her new Han Solo frozen in Carbonite mold. Good to know she has that... might need to borrow it in May. ;) 

The Drinks:

 Graling Juice - a juice favored by wookie younglings.

Ardees (Jawa Juice) - Adult beverages ;)

Yoda Soda - I don't have a picture of the actual punch, but our Yoda McDonald's toy was on the tray for decoration. The recipe was 1 container of lime sherbet, 1 can of frozen limeade mix and a 2L bottle of ginger ale (or was it two? I can't remember sorry!)

The Activities:

 We warmed up with some Star Wars Mad Libs while the first movie was playing.

 They started a game of Star Wars Trivial Pursuit before I realized it, so when it was time to have my husband grill burgers I asked them to take an intermission and join us outside for our Jedi Sparing competition.

 Litsabur was another funny Pinterest find I couldn't pass up. These pool noodle light sabers went home as party favors for the kids. A favorite to this day, at our house!

 Since we had more than 8 guests, we made a qualifying challenge to get into the sparing bracket... We tested their Jedi abilities by seeing who could hit the floating orb, while wearing the "flight helmet with the blast shield down" (I blacked out the visor of our friend's motorcycle helmet with paper) the most times in 30 seconds. The orb was a wiffle ball on bakers twine hung over the branch. It wasn't as hard as we thought it would be though. I guess the Force was with us. ;)

Meanwhile, the kids played on the swing set and waged war on each other with the spare light sabers.

 After the scores were tallied, I filled in the bracket (inside of a picture frame and used dry erase marker)

The rules for points were decided on, and we had 2-3 refs watching and counting points as everyone sparred... and yes, you'll note we had a traitor in our midst. Unfortunately, the Trekkie ended up being the best Jedi and won the title. haha!

When the burgers were done, we went inside and had lunch. The kids were great throughout the whole party. 

 They also had the Lego Star Wars Padawan Menace video to watch and the Lego Star Wars Wii game to play (aside from a playroom full of toys to play with).

We finished up our Trivial Pursuit game and I can't remember, but I think team Pace won! Or maybe it was team Stiles... but I think all the crazy stuff I learned while researching wookieepedia for this party gained us an unexpected advantage in the game!

The Party Favors:

 In addition to the pool noodle light sabers, each of our little younglings left the party with a folder full of the print outs from this free preschool pack slipped inside of sheet protectors and I gave them the craft sticks needed to make the puppets and a dry erase marker.

I know my son loves his activity book. The other kids may be a bit young for it still, but at least they'll have it for when they're old enough.

Because it took me so long to put this blog post together, I don't have a picture of our Lego Death Star ornament hanging on our tree, and it's already packed away in the attic now... so here's a picture of the original one from CHRISMCVEIGH.COM where we downloaded the instructions and parts list to order the pieces to make these. It costs about $12 in parts and shipping, so we didn't foot the bill for these on our own. We got a count of how many people wanted to make one ahead of time and they were happy to pay us back for them. It was a lot of fun to make though, and everyone loves having this fun little memento from the party to keep.

The Photos:

I made a backdrop for our photos using some black velvet and cut the letters out of yellow paper using the the free Star Jedi font, and the Sure Cuts a Lot program for my Cricut. I just spray glued them on. Oh, and yes, I made her Lakeside Padme costume from scratch too, but that was months before the party! Scroll down to see more on that!

I wish I had made the backdrop go horizontally,so you couldn't see the wall, but oh well. Here's a picture of our Padme Parade (Fireside Padme, Lakeside Padme, Queen Amidala, and "action packed" Padme, as Stephanie called it)

Our whole crew. My hubby is the GNK "Gonk" droid in the box behind us. hehe kind of a pun since Gonk is so small, but he's 6' 2" tall. ;) 

 

Me and my baby girl. :)