Junktacular: Star Wars Birthday Party

My son's 6th birthday party had a Star Wars theme. When planning a birthday party, I basically plan according to this:
1. Invitations - design the invitation, decide on the timeline and get them sent out
2. Decorations - table cloth, center piece, banner
3. Activities/Games
4. Food/Snacks
5. Design, bake and decorate the cake(s)
6. Loot Bags - I am not a fan of dollar store junk or candy. I rarely include any in my loot bags unless their is a really good link to the theme. I tend to buy one or two more expensive items as opposed to many little items.

Here are some of the things we did for his Star Wars party:

Invitations:
Okay, we made really cool DVD invitations. I used iMovie to create a movie that was done like the words that scroll at the beginning (or is it the end?) of Star Wars movies. It began with a starry sky and that led into the words in the invitation that scrolled while the movie (and Stars Wars theme song) played. At the end, I had all the details again along with a Star Wars Picture my son had drawn. I tried like crazy to upload the video, but couldn't get it to work. So here is my lame attempt at sharing - a photo of my computer screen, yep, pretty high tech hey??

The actual font colour was yellow, but it doesn't really show here.

Here is what the invitation said, in Star Wars language.

In a galaxy far, far away, on the morning of June 4, 2004, a baby boy was born.

The Jedi Council named him Shay Alexander Roy and they knew he was the chosen one. In the 6 years that followed his birth, young Shay has been learning the power of the force. Meanwhile, the Republic discovered a new enemy. The Jedi knights felt a strong disturbance in the force. Fear, pain and suffering have opened the path to the Darkside.

Many Jedi knights have been lost. The very future of the Jedi Order is now in jeopardy. Young Padawan Shay has been called by the Jedi Council to seek out future Jedi. Master Yoda is urging the youngling to complete their training and take part in the upcoming trials.

Your presence is requested to complete this Jedi Training and prepare for the trials on June 4th, 2010.

We are scheduled to depart from the Roy System, Docking Bay at _____________ at 1100 hours.

Please advise the Jedi Council as soon as possible via email or at 453-0462.

We hope you will accept the challenge of the trials.

May the Force be with you!

Please note: Due to safety protocols in the Republic, no weapons will be allowed on the transport vessel. Please forgive the inconvience and rest assured that the Jedi Council has secured enough equipment for the Padawans to complete their training.

Decorations:

As always, I make a large birthday banner. I tried to use Star Wars type font although it was handmade, so is certainly not exact. I also included one of Shay's Star Wars drawings since he is fanatical about drawing Star Wars characters.

Other than that, the decorations were pretty simple and not much to brag about. Kind of sad really:(

Of course, there was Star Wars music playing in the background.

Birthday Banner with the tie fighters below on the window sill.

The was the Death Star made from a spray painted beach ball and a black Sharpy for detail. It hung above the table.

The table was a simple black table cloth with planets on it. You can see a tie fighter cupcake beside the earth.

We also put up some black and white balloons.

Activities:

Jedi Training - Have someone be the "Master Jedi" and teach the younglings some Jedi moves

Pass the Asteroid - a large crunched up ball of foil. Pass the asteroid around the circle and when the music stops, whoever is left holding the asteroid is out. They loved this!

Asteroid Hunt - hide foil balls around and see who can find the most asteroids

Light Saber Limbo

Star Wars Mural - large black paper, have the kids draw characters, planets, starfighters, etc.

Food/Snacks:

I keep my parties to about 2 hours. I rarely go over meal time and I find that there is seldom extra down time. As a kindergarten teacher, I know that if there is not structure, things can get very ugly very fast! I usually leave about 30 to 45 minutes for cake and presents at the end and plan for about 15 minutes of quite activity while the guest arrive (like the mural). Kids can join in as they come, and we can get started with the games once everyone has arrived. I tend to keep them pretty busy and thus I find they have little time and/or interest in eating.

Basically, I usually serve a beverage and a few snacks. This time we had:

Chips and dip

Star shaped crackers and cheese

Yoda Soda (sprite and lime sherbert mixed together - foams up and the kids thought it was so cool)

Cake:

Okay, call me crazy, but we actually had 3 parties in one day for my son….school friends, neighbours and a family party. Also, I nearly always serve ice cream with the birthday cake.

I made three different styles of cake and of course, some turned out better than others as you will see. However, I am going to bite the bullet and share all three, despite the fact that one was an absolute bust.

Great concept, but didn't work that great. This Light Saber cake has a blue jello "light saber" - cool, but the handle is a bit big for the light and the colours ran a bit in the icing.