Monday, May 25, 2015

May the Fourth Be With You - Star Wars Party!

I have always wanted to host a Star Wars themed monthly dinner, so I have been waiting and waiting for our dinner to fall on May 4th.  It finally did this year...hence, the May the Fourth Be With You theme! This theme was so fun, and super easy to pull off.


Invite:  I made the invite on PhotoShop.  The Star Wars font is available for free from tons of sites.  I used the Star Wars Rounded font for most of the invite.


Entry:  I have a very talented student leader in my class this year, and she helped me make this amazing Darth Vader entry sign to welcome guests "to the Dark Side".  We made it out of poster board and card stock.  I borrowed some light sabers from a friend to add to the entry.


Inside Decor: For the dinner table, I bought a Darth Vader backpack from a local store to place as my centerpiece and some mini C3PO figures to place on each side of it.  I used fishing line taped to my ceiling to hold up two crossing light sabers.



I love the C3PO water bottles and R2D2 cups I created for the party.  I found the template for the cups online on the Catch My Party website here.  I just used white paper cups I bought at the Dollar Tree and glued them on. Since these two droids are always together, I wanted to have C3PO next to him.  I came up with these water bottles. I bought gold metallic spray paint and sprayed them after removing the label. I then cut two large circles and the rectangle mouth out of gold card stock, drew the lines in thin black sharpie and taped them on.  Super easy.


I bought black square plates from the Dollar Store and used scrapbooking tape to adhere a Star Wars logo to the middle.  The light saber napkins were easy to make. I came up with the idea for these and was rather excited, but then discovered someone else on the internet had this idea too. Lucky for me, they had already create the image, so I just used what they had already created here.


I thought long and hard about what to make as a place card.  I even watched the original movie one more time to get inspiration.  I came up with these super cute tie fighter place cards.  They do take some time to make, but since I was only making some, I was able to get them done.



I designed two simple wine bottle labels using PhotoShop. For the Red Wine, I chose to use Darth Vader who is associated with red. I used Yoda for the white and phrased the label's words the way Yoda speaks in the movies.




















Menu:  I went with a simple menu because these items were easy to fit with the characters of the Star Wars movies.  I started with a Tie Fighter appetizer.  These are just octagon crackers I found at the grocery store and cheese rectangles.  The are held together with cream cheese mixed with garlic powder, Italian seasoning, and a little bit of salt and pepper.  Yummy!


For the main dish, I served "Han"burgers of course after Han Solo.  I placed all the fixings on the side to add what they wanted.


I served easy to prepare fruit kabobs as one side dish. Since I teach all day on the days of these monthly dinners, it is great to do some things the day before.  Definitely helps with my stress level -- yes...I am always super stressed since I'm always so last minute!  These Obi-Wan Kabob-ies were also a way to tie in the character Obi Wan Kenobi.


I called on my amazing friend Deanna for help in making a pasta salad.  She is an amazing cook, and this salad was just another example of her talents.  It was delicious. We used bow tie pasta to represent the character Boba Fett.


For a yummy and sweet dessert, I made Princess Lea cupcakes.  These are so cute, this awful photo doesn't do them justice.  I used black frosting to make the hair and attach the Oreos.  At first my plan was to use brown (so it would be more like Princess Lea), but that meant I would need to dip the Oreos in chocolate so they would match.  That was too much work for me, so I just went with black.  The rest is just frosting I piped on.


Favors:  I had so many ideas for a thank you for coming gift, that I had to figure out a way to incorporate them all! I designed these Darth Vader and Storm Trooper bags using card stock and bags I found at the Dollar Tree. Don't you love how they turned out?


I designed these tags to attach to the bags.


Inside, I used little favor bags bought from Michaels to put small candy in.  Rolos for Han Solo (Rolo), gummy bears to represent Ewoks, and chewy Lemonheads to represent Chewbacca.

This is a great theme for a kid or adult birthday party.  My kids were loving everything, and they are already asking for a Star Wars themed party of their own!

Happy May the 4th...May the Fourth Be with You!