Star Wars Party – Episode I | The Refreshments

Last weekend, we took a break from all the Christmas chaos, traveled to a galaxy not so far away (our backyard), and celebrated my son turning 5, with a Star Wars themed birthday party! It was pretty perfect timing since everybody is pumped over the new movie opening TODAY, and I was pretty pumped because that meant that Star Wars stuff was EVERYWHERE! Star Wars coffee creamer, Star Wars Cheez-its, Star Wars fruit snacks, heck you could even buy Star Wars makeup products from Covergirl (I still don’t understand that endorsement). It definitely makes party planning more fun when you don’t have to scour every store hoping to find SOMETHING that fits your theme, and it definitely makes my life easier when I don’t have to make everything myself just to achieve a cohesive theme, so I was a happy girl.

This party was not only a lot of fun to plan, it was even more fun to throw, because it was 70 degrees and sunny outside the day of the party! Who would have guessed that we would ever get to have an outdoor party in December in Delaware? It was great, especially since we had 13 kids on our guest-list, plus my two, so I was more than thankful to open the back door and let them run!

I’m going to have to break this party down into two posts. There is just too much stuff that I want to share to cram it into one, so this “episode” is going to be everything Star Wars refreshments!

We’ll start off with the bar, every good kids party needs one, right? I was a little shocked disappointed that I couldn’t find Star Wars juice boxes, but I did my best to make up for it with our R2D2-H2O. I was inspired by another beverage dispenser that I saw on pinterest and since we had almost the exact one, I couldn’t resist it. To decorate the dispenser I picked up a couple sheets of duck tape from the craft store in the colors that I needed. I then just cut different sized squares and rectangles out of them. The circle stickers were leftover from a previous project, so I got lucky and didn’t have to cut those out, and the black detail lines were just done with a ruler and a sharpie. This project definitely looked more intimidating than it was, and I am so happy with how it came out. R2 may just have to stick around for our New Years Eve party as well, because I can’t bare to peel him off.

For the water bottles, I used a roll of Star Wars Duck tape! I am ridiculously stingy with how I use our printer ink, probably because printer ink is ridiculously expensive, so I couldn’t give in to all the adorable printables for water bottle wraps that I see on Etsy, so I made our own with a roll of Duck tape! This is SO simple, you don’t even have to take the original label off the water bottle, and it’s even easier when you can make your husband do it, which I did. Craft stores sell Duck Tape in so many different themes these days, you can really do them to match any party! You literally just wrap a strip of tape around the bottle – DONE. Too bad I didn’t think to snap a picture of them before/during the party. I literally grabbed these out of the recycling bin…

I also always stick a sheet of stickers to match the party theme on the bar. That way people can label their cups to know which one is theirs and not get them all mixed up, and because it makes boring Solo cups look more fun.

For our tableware supplies, I actually ended up having to order them online, because although Star Wars stuff is EVERYWHERE, most of what is in the stores right now is from the new movie that is just coming out, so 1. they had characters that we weren’t really familiar with yet and 2. I felt they were pretty dark for a 5 year olds birthday party. I didn’t mind having Kylo Ren mixed in with some of the decor, but to have that mask glaring down from the top of our cupcake tower, it was just too much. So I was more than excited to find classic Star Wars party supplies from dollarcarousel.com. I had to pay for shipping, but the prices there were actually lower than most of the stuff that I was seeing at Party City anyway, and they had R2-D2, C-3PO, and Darth Vader! I ordered a few packs of plates, napkins, and table cloths in the Star Wars theme, and then I hit up my local dollar store for plain royal blue ones that matched, to mix in. That is an easy way to save money on your party supplies, if you don’t want to pass up the character items completely!

I hadn’t planned on doing food labels. I just thought it would be one more thing added to my to-do list that most people probably wouldn’t even notice, and then I came across this post on the Over the Big Moon blog. There were so many cute ideas that I couldn’t resist it, 7 Leia dip? I mean, come on! She actually gives you free printables for the labels right on her site, but I decided to make my own since I was only going to do a few of them, and because she used a black background and I am not about to go through that much printer ink, lol. To make my own labels, I googled “free Star Wars font,” and downloaded one right to my computer. I was then able to type up anything that I wanted and it instantly looked Star Wars-y. I used picmonkey.com to design them. I kept it super simple and just used the Star Wars font and added some of their “sparkle stars” overlays and that was it.

The labels that I did were:

7 Leia Dip: My sister’s taco dip
Padawan Pizza: Pizza delivered from our local shop
Rebel Roast Beef: Roast Beef Sandwiches
Edible Ewoks: Teddy Grahams
Wookie Cookies: I followed this recipe
The Light Side and Dark Side: Golden and Original Oreos
Use the Forks


I ordered our cake and cupcakes right from ACME. I have used ACME or Shoprite for all of my kids birthday cakes so far and I have not been disappointed once. They honestly do great themed cakes. I always get complimented on them and their whipped icing is delicious! As much as I would love to do my own cakes, I have learned that cake decorating is not my strong suit and I’d rather not spend the night before the party, crying on my kitchen floor. It is so worth it to pay the $30 or so, and let a professional handle it.

This year I ordered a little round cake and then 2 dozen cupcakes to go with it. I did pick up the Star Wars rings from a baking supply store (Cannon’s on Kirkwood Hwy, for the locals), and stuck them in the top of each cupcake the morning of the party, and added my own Darth Vader and “5” candle to the top of the cake.

This was definitely one of my favorite party themes to do yet! The hardest part was probably cutting myself off because there are so many great ideas out there and I did have to get some sleep at some point. Our Elf on the Shelf couldn’t even pass up the festivities! He has officially chosen the dark side.

I am so excited to share the rest of the party fun with you, so stayed tuned for “Star Wars Party: Episode II | The Decor”. I will hopefully have that post up early next week…and then back to the Christmas chaos!!!

My husband caught a showing of the new movie last night. Anybody else have their tickets for this weekend? Padawan Popcorn anyone?

xo
c