In A Galaxy Far, Far Away....

(okay, our backyard)....we threw a STAR WARS party for our son Benjamin's 5th birthday!!!

Benjamin's interest in Star Wars has been continuing since last year (which is when he decided that he was a real Jedi Knight), so when he told me earlier this summer that that's what he wanted his b-day theme to be, I was ready to make it as out of this world as I could. Thanks to A TRILLION great ideas on Pintrest and blogs (this fantastic one in particular) it all came together really well and fairly inexpensively.

If you google "Star Wars Parties" you'll quickly learn how many clever food tie-ins there are with the movie. We narrowed our snacks down to these favorites: Jedi Juice (Capri Suns), Force Fuel (mini sodas), Chewy Brownies, Padawan Popcorn, Wookie Cookies (Teddy Grahams), and Han Rolos (Rolos candy). We also served Out of This World Pizza from Dominos.

Since his party was close to the end of the summer, I scored on some of plastic serve ware on sale from Smiths Marketplace (we already had the big yellow plastic bins which I pretty much use in some way for EVERY party we throw). I thought the big black bowl (which we used for the popcorn) resembled Darth Vader's helmet and the above yellow chip/veggie dish resembled a space ship. ;)

Here's a view of the entrance guests saw when they first arrived. Signs read: "Welcome Young Jedi" and "Jedi Training Center." The sheet of galaxy background is just excess off one of the tablecloths.

Here's a round-up of all the games we played. Like I did for Grant's 3rd b-day, I just attached signs to our re-usable tall garden stakes. These were spread out throughout our yard to designate each different game station. Here's a list of what each game was:

Darth Tater: We had a mini Darth Vader helmet that I attached to our Hot Potato game. This simple game is always such a hit!

Princess Leia Says: Used this one as an ice breaker as we waited for all of the Young Jedi Knights to arrive. It was played just like Simon Says, only with Princess Leia and using sayings like..."Run around like Han Solo" or "March like a Storm Trooper" or "Dance like a Ewok."

Jabba The Hop: Purchased these king size pillow cases (because every review I read about real potato sacks said that they stink!) for kids to do potato sack races in. They worked great!

Light Saber Challenge: Each child was given a mini light saber to to keep white balloons/ clouds up in the air.

Torpedo Toss: Kids tossed lawn darts (I found mine at Bed Bath & Beyond) at a large 2' Darth Vader balloon that we tied to a hula hoop to keep it on the ground. I meant to get a photo of it but before I could, one of the torpedos launched him back into outer space! We all joked that he was going back to the dark side. ;)

Here's a shot of the banner that I made! It read the famous Star Wars saying: May The Force Be With You. It is my first and probably only banner that I will make. I just used my computer, paper, and ribbon and it was therefore really cheap, but it was pretty time consuming to cut out each letter, back with card stock, hole punch twice, then thread threw onto the ribbon....it sure made for a cute back drop though!

Benjamin and Grant already had STAR WARS t-shirts (found at H&M this past spring, before they quickly sold out!), and Bart and my Dad were happy to wear black and yellow tees that I found at Old Navy (which are now also sold out).

The tablecloths, mini spaceships, goodie bags, and Darth Vader balloon were all ordered online from Birthday Direct. The above shown mini light sabers are the BEST! My sister found them last year and they've held up very well to all of our kids constant and rough play. I've spotted them at Hobby Lobby, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Kmart.

Ordered party invitations from here and since Benjamin was a Jedi Knight last Halloween (thanks to my sister's awesome sewing skills) we had a pretty great picture of him posing with his light saber to use for it.

That's our STAR WARS party in a nutshell Millennium Falcon. Thanks again to everyone who joined us!


p.s. click here for a really funny Star Wars themed nursery that I recently came across.