Remember my Lego Star Wars invitations? Well the party was GREAT, and I’m FINALLY blogging about it. It was SO much fun and turned out just great. I didn’t quite get everything done I wanted to (I never do it seems) but at some point you always have to stop and go with what you’ve got! **update – find the Lego Star Wars printables here**
Because our children attend a charter school (for kids on the autistic spectrum) over 20 mins away we’ve had bad luck getting guests to show up to our house for parties. A lot of their schoolmates live in the other direction and sometimes even farther away than us. So we decided that having another party at our house would be futile, and so I picked a park right next to the school and set the party date and time for just after school got out on a Thursday. We ended up with about half the class so it worked out great!
I had fun laying out the food and the table but then just as it was time to take pictures the sun peeked out over the gap in the pavilion and lite up the table just WRONG! So the pictures are all full of bright red reflections from the tablecloth, and shadows and bright lights. No matter what I do I just can’t get good pictures to save my life of my pictures! GAH! Someday I’ll get it all right!
My favorite part of the overall decor was my Lego block carbonite Hans Solo! No one else at the party was nerdy enough to appreciate it fully. I cut it out of vinyl with my new Silhouette machine. And I love love LOVED it! And the first of my themed food… Leia Rolls! I opted not to put the frosting on the cinnamon rolls so you could see the roll design, I didn’t want to cover up what made them look like Leia’s hair! On to the rest of the food!
You can also see my table layout. Again, I’m still figuring out how to best get amazing, and pretty, party layouts. Clearly I need to play with more height next time! In fact I cut out the backdrop and the pendant banner I made because they just looked TERRIBLE! Super high, with all this space between the table/food and them… Bad bad BAD!
I had SO much fun coming up with food that fit the theme of our party! Pixie sticks for Light Sabers was the obvious choice (that or candy dipped pretzels) but did you know that they are SUPER hard to find these days? I went to 7 different stores! SEVEN! I choose to go with pixie sticks for speed, in the end it might’ve been faster to dip all the pretzel sticks in chocolate! And Chocolate candy rocks for Space rocks! All the images for the labels are from screen shots of the various Lego Star Wars games! Some where harder to find good pictures of than others, so making the labels took DAYS longer than I thought it would.
The favorite food of the adults by FAR was my white chocolate Padme Popcorn! Good thing I made a HUGE batch of it! My favorite title is my Wookie Balls (get it? No? Well it’s funny…)! Here is one of the area’s I ended up falling short. My PLAN was to make homemade hostess coconut covered Snowballs , but in brown of course (get it? Big brown coconut covered balls? GET IT???). I ended up just getting donuts holes, fast and easy, but not quite a fun.
MY favorite food to EAT was the Hoth Pops (if your not a big geek like me it’s the Snow covered planet!)! I have to admit I’m not a cake ball fan (shhh don’t tell anyone) but I DO love oreo balls, so that’s what I made! I covered them in white chocolate and, not that you can see them, edible sparkles (I was SO glad there was leftovers, I made about 50 and I probably ate HALF of them)! Then I used chocolate gold coins for my Boba Fett Bounty!
I used Nerds candy for Space Dust, I kind of wished I could’ve found something less colorful, but they are the perfect size and so fun to eat! And Sour Patch Kids for my Edible Ewoks. These were the kids favorites. I have a picture of one little boy with a plate FULL of these, about 1/2 an inch THICK. And it wasn’t his first plateful!
I LOVED the Yoda Soda, it’s sprite and lime sherbert mixed together. It is SUCH a lovely color, and I have to say it tasted pretty darn good. One of my favorite parts of the party prep was my C-3PO H2O. I had this idea to spray paint the water bottles Gold. My husband said it wouldn’t work, but I had high hopes. They turned out LOVELY! Just lovely! I am SO in love with these. I think I’ll have more spray painted water bottles in the future! They worked great, and of course when you take the lid off you have nice non-painted plastic for drinking. My kids LOVED drinking the special GOLD water. But my oldest did tell me I should have named it C-3PO oil, because he wouldn’t drink water- silly me!
And the centerpiece my Lego Millennium Falcon! I kind of wish I’d had another hour to spend on this, but I always feel that way when it comes to my cakes. They are NEVER good enough for me and my vision, but it’s recognizable, cute and the birthday boy loved it. THAT’S what really matters in the end. And of course it tasted GREAT! He picked Strawberry, I am SO glad I finally have an AMAZING strawberry cake recipe. It’s taken years, but I’m really in love with it now!
And the back of the cake… The park was sunny and warm but we did have a wind come whipping through the pavilion where we were set up and I didn’t think we’d be able to pull off candles. But with the help of my dad holding his jacket on one side and someone else holding a plate on the other we were able to get the candles to work JUST long enough for him to blow them out!
When you think six high functioning autistic kindergartners at a party you automatically think “how am I going to keep them occupied?”. I knew by having the party at the park that would keep them occupied for a few mins, but these boys don’t have a long attention span. SO I came up with some fun hands on crafts.
The first, and by FAR the most popular was decorating their own light sabers. I went to my FAVORITE store (Home Depot) and bought some 9 ft long foam pipe covers. I cut them down to 3 ft each and then covered the bottom 6 inches with some SHINY aluminum Duct Tape (not the brand duct tape, but tape for ducts… Then I had Duct tape (the brand) in 4 different bright colors (red, yellow, green and blue) for the boys to decorate their own light sabers with! At the beginning everyone went with one color, but after my dad created his own multi-colored light saber it was all the rage. We soon had stripes, spirals, etc…
I used my Silhouette to create Lego Star Wars Temporary Tattoos for all the kids! love love LOVE them! The kids did too! My son has been using up the extras over the last 2 weeks. I’m down to my last 3, and I’m pretty sure I’ll have to make more once they are officially gone!
For a sit down craft, for the quieter attendee’s, I had Galaxy Play dough. I found it on Pinterest a few weeks ago (LOVE that site) and thought it would be PERFECT! I made homemade BLACK play dough (salt) and bought a ton of different colored glitter. Then I let each child have a handful of the play dough and picking their own glitter colors (or some of EVERY color) they got to knead the glitter into the dough! Then I had containers for them to take their new, shiny, galaxy play dough home with!
And of course it wouldn’t be one of my kids birthday’s without a homemade pinata. I made a death star pinata! Using a punch ball to get the perfectly round shape, and after a few layers cutting out a circle, filling the pinata, and putting the circle BACK on, but inverted I created a Death Star. My mistake with this one? I sprayed it with metallic silver paint and then when I went to draw a bunch of black detailed lines onto it with my sharpie it wouldn’t write! GRRRRR! It was so shiny and glossy the pen wouldn’t work on it! So it was a pretty bland/plain pinata. I should’ve gone with a matte grey… NEXT TIME!
A HUGE treat for my sweet birthday boy is that his kindergarten teacher came too. She is just amazing, I can’t sing her praises enough. She had a class of 13 autistic boys all year (and it’s all day kindergarten) and she was absolutely incredible! I love that she was right there playing light sabers with the boys the whole party. I wish she was moving up every year with my sweet little boy, but alas, I have to leave her for the future kindergartners to love! I can count on one hand the number of people that TRULY “get” and love my son, and she is one of them.
So a totally fun and successful party! My parents ended up being in town and my sister and her family came too, so we had a great turnout, plenty of food and craft supplies and everyone had a great time. Success!
All Lego Parties
[riview showtitle=always id=64 name=parties tags=lego size=150x150 lightbox=0]
Angela
Thank you so much for the information! My son is in the inclusion class at school and we invited the whole class to his star wars birthday party. It is nice to find some advice on how to keep everyone busy. I’m not sure what I am in for, but my son seems to really enjoy the kids in his class so we decided to invite everyone and I think almost everyone is coming too!!! Anyway, I was really happy to find this post because I now know that the ideas I have come up with should keep everyone happy.
Ashlee
Good luck! I know that inviting the whole class is scary for anyone, let alone when you might not know how some of the kids will act or react! Good luck and I hope they all have a ball! My kids STILL love their light sabers and I just broke out the LAST of the galaxy playdough last week! Did you get the labels from my FB page as well?
janie
I love your ideas! My son too wants a lego star wars party this year. (: I was wondering what is your recipe for the white chocolate popcorn? Since no one else asked……I must be missing how easy it is. (: I looked all over your website and did not see it, but of course found so many more great ideas. You are very blessed with creativity! Thank you for sharing!
Ashlee
I popped plain popcorn and spread it over a large cookie sheet, melted HIGH quality white chocolate candy melts, and pour it over the popcorn, stirring it while it cools! And other candy if you want, but it tends to be heavy and sink to the bottom
cakemaker
Thanks so much for sharing the details of this cake. Can you tell me what size oval tin did you use, please?
Ashlee
it doesn’t matter what size you start with, just carve the cake from that, so if your having a bigger party use a bigger oval, a smaller party a smaller oval. I honestly don’t remember!
cakemaker
Thanks…that makes sense.
Ashlee
Your welcome, sorry I couldn’t be more helpful. I really should take better notes on my cakes!
cakemaker
No need to be sorry…..the photo is a great guide to go by….:0))
Ashlee
Thanks so much! I’m so sorry I’m just barely getting around to my comments! It’s been crazy busy over here!
Emerie
I am trying to come up with unique, yet creative ways for my son’s birthday next month. For the water bottles, did you just spray paint all over? What kind of paint did you use?
Thanks so much!
Ashlee
I did just spray paint them. I used gold metallic paint and did a few thin layers until I was happy with them!
Crystal
I love it and plan on doing this for my son’s 5th bday.Last year I did a Harry Potter one,and did the various food and treats in fun labeled bowls too-it was great! And on each disposable cup,I taped a label with a different named potion.(online-there are tons of different names for potions) No one got their drinks mixed up and it was a big hit!
Ashlee
I’ve been trying to get one of my kids to go with Harry Potter, so many possibilities!!!! Someday, what a fun idea.
Marikathryn Hendrix
I would love to get those water bottle labels. Am I able to copy them to print? These are amazing!
Ashlee
They are on this post http://ashleemarie.com/lego-star-wars-birthday-party-food-labels/, just click on the link and then save the pages to your computer, print cute and tape!
Renee Martin-Rhea
My 6 year old son has Aspergers and is obsessed with Lego Star Wars right now. Thanks for giving me so many awesome ideas for his upcoming birthday in August!
Ashlee
your so welcome, make sure to check out this page http://ashleemarie.com/lego-star-wars-birthday-party-food-labels/ and download the labels!!! It is SUCH a fun party, my 7YO is moving on to lego ninjago now!
Kathleen
I LOVE your party, and am trying to organize the same for my son who’s turning 5 in August. Any chance you’re still offering the food labels for FB likers?
Ashlee
I AM!!! I keep forgetting to switch it out! I hope no one minds, but I do want to offer a change at some point! It’s such a fun party though it’s hard to ever take off, I get so many requests for them!
Tiffany
Love all of these fabulous ideas!!! I am going to attempt the C3PO water bottles tomorrow. I was wondering how do you keep the water cold during the party??? I don’t want to ruin your labels in ice and I am nervous about ruining the paint. Any tips? Thank you!
Ashlee
I didn’t bother, I just had the water out and room temperature. It was May and the weather was still nice, not hot, not cold, just right for drinking!
Jerri
Could you explain how you made the legos on the cake look so real? My grandson wants this cake for his birthday this weekend. If you don’t see this before 8/30/12 I may try to find regular legos to put on it! Thanks for the help!
Ashlee
They are all made out of fondant. I rolled it out, cut it into circles, squares, rectangles, etc… then I used a round tip to cut out the circles and glue them with clear vanilla (or vodka) to the squares, etc…
Carolina
My son is turning 5 in December and he is obssessed with Star Wars, would you be so kind to share your food labels with me?! I would greatly appreciate it! As I am on a budget =(
Ashlee
the labels are on this label post now http://ashleemarie.com/lego-star-wars-birthday-party-food-labels/
Miranda
I love it!
I liked the page on Facebook.
How may I find the food labels for the Star Wars?
Ashlee
They are under the tab “free lego star wars labels” you can’t see tabs on phones or tablets, just computers.
Christi K.
You are a genius! And a great mom. I am in awe of the effort and creativity you poured into the party. Being far lazier and less creative, I would love to download your cool labels. However, FB won’t let me have the link on Explorer because of an invalid security certificate for the link. FB on Chrome won’t let me have it because of an error/the file may have been moved. Could you please figure this out for me? Thanks in advance.
Ashlee
I just checked and it worked for me in chrome and firefox and explorer and it worked for me every time. sorry, it must be on your end.
Sharon
Love the Lego party! My son is turning 8 in April. I just came across your blog. Love the idea! Will be using some of your great tips! Great Job!!!
Ashlee
I’m so glad you like it! to date it’s still one of my all time favorite parties! I want to do it again just to get even BETTER pictures, it was amazing!
Heather
Love these ideas! I liked your facebook page back in January, but never got the labels. Is there anyway to get those now? I really think they are fantastic!
Ashlee
totally still there. everytime I try to take them down people want them again, so I just leave them on! go to the FB page, and click on the tab “free lego star wars food labels” scroll down to the blue text links, click on what you want and save them to your PC!
Jenn
Love the C3PO water. How did you make the labels?
Ashlee
I designed them in photoshop. they are included in the free food labels download! http://ashleemarie.com/lego-star-wars-birthday-party-food-labels/
Anna
I absolutely love your creative ideas! May I ask how you cut and piece together the cake to create the Millennium Falcom? Also, did you use paper mache to create the Death Star Pinata? Thanks so much!
Ashlee
yes the death star is paper mache.
for the cake I baked an oval shape, then laid over a printed image of the millennium falcon (top down) and used it as a template. So it’s not pieced together, but cut from one cake. then I carved down the tapered edge around the top!
lynn
Ashley would it be possible to have a copy of the files you used for the temporary tattos…. I have been searching the web but not having any luck, thanks so much Lynn
Chris
I would love them, also, please! I just ordered the paper from Amazon 😀
Ashlee
just uploaded them to the post with all the other lego star wars printables
Ashlee
just uploaded them to the post with all the other lego star wars printables
Nadia
Hi , I love your Star Wars party ! I’m having a Star Wars party for my boys next month. I was trying to get the C-3PO water labels but I can’t find them anywhere
Ashlee
they are right here on the Lego Star Wars food labels post