Ethan's {Star Wars Themed} 5th Birthday Party

Shortly after Christmas, I asked Ethan what theme he wanted for his birthday party this year. He threw out several different ideas, but finally settled on Star Wars. He's watched all six of the movies with his Daddy, and he's very into all of the characters right now. Never having watched this series of movies myself (I know, I know. I'm just not interested!!), I did have to do a little research to prepare for the party this year. ;) Then, I started where I always do, with the invitations.

This year, we decided to have two separate parties to celebrate Ethan's birthday. One would be for his preschool friends, at Wallabies (a local bounce house), and one would be for family, at our house. Something about the possibility of twenty 4- and 5-year-olds running around at our house just wasn't too appealing. ;)

So, I made one invitation that could be easily mailed to family members, and another one for his preschool friends that included a glowstick "lightsaber," since those would be distributed by hand at school. I was so happy with how those turned out and Ethan loved them! All items you see here are available for customization and purchase. Please message me at seeleylanedesign@gmail.com or convo me via my Etsy shop.

Darth Vader is his favorite, so of course he had to be the focus of the design. Next, I wanted to incorporate some purple, as that is currently his favorite color. I tried to give it an outer space feel with the dark, starry sky as well. I always like to include a picture of the birthday boy, too, so I added in one of those as well.

After the invitations were mailed and delivered, it was time to start designing the other elements of the party. I tried to get as much done as early as possible this year, as hubby had a couple out-of-town work trips planned the two weeks before the party. After long days solo with the boys, it's hard to find motivation to tackle party planning after I finally get them all tucked in to bed!

I did some brainstorming and a lot of Pinterest browsing (of course!) and here is what I came up with for party decorations and food.

To decorate the house, I bought some balloons at the local party supply store. They had a couple different Star Wars balloons, then I bought some plain black and colored ones to coordinate with those. I also made a custom banner that read "Happy 5th Birthday Ethan!" using one of the Darth pictures and colors from the invites. Below is a digital example of the flags. After printing them out, I pasted them onto a goldenrod-colored scrapbook paper, then trimmed them. I strung the flags all together with black yarn.

I also made tags to label the food items that we served at the party. I found lots of ideas on Pinterest for Star Wars themed food items, then also made some of my own up. Here's what we feasted on...

Hamburgers (Han burgers) and hot dogs (Hutt dogs), on buns (Princess Leia, to be exact), make for easy party food. I always like to serve fruit, as the boys love it, so fruit kabobs (Obi-wan kabob-ies) were perfect! Pasta salad (Bow-ba Fett) made with bowtie pasta and Chewbacca's chips and dip were also tasty sides. Carrots (C-3PO) with ranch (R2-D2) dip, Carbonite jell-o and Ewok food rounded out the main course items. We served Echo Base ice cream (homemade, yum!!) for dessert, with the cake. To drink, I had planned Yoda Soda and Vader Ade, but with a last-minute reduced guest list, I decided to nix the latter. Food tents available for purchase here in my Etsy shop. <---- convo="" etsy="" i="" me="" order.="" please="" to="" via="">

I made favor bags for his preschool friends to take home with them. Ethan helped me make the actual treat bags. I purchased plain black paper sacks from Michael's, then we splatter painted the bags with white paint and a toothbrush! Fun! This was a trick I learned in middle school, for creating what looks like a starry outer space! Perfect! I printed each child's name (in the Star Wars font, of course) on a label to put on the front. For inside the bag, I kept with the glowstick light saber theme (what kid doesn't love glow sticks? I've learned that my boys become quite agreeable if I give them one to play with! Haha!), and created a cute little card thanking his friends for coming to the party. I also pasted these onto the goldenrod scrapbook paper, too. I like to include fun treats for the kids to eat, too, so I packaged up little bags of the Ewok food (Goldfish crackers, pretzel sticks, and dried cranberries), too. I found the clear plastic, round treat bags at Michael's, and created the tags to print. I also included a Star Wars light saber sucker that actually lit up when you push a button (I got a fantastic deal on those at Toys 'R Us), some Star Wars fruit snacks (our local grocery's brand, Food Club, offers these), and a Star Wars character sticker.

Then there was the cake I made for the party at our house, and cupcakes for the party with his friends. Ethan requested a super star destroyer for his cake this year, so I googled some images and came up with one that looked like this. I bought some color flow icing to use, but this icing unfortunately ended up bleeding while it was hardening, and looked awful. So, I ended up free-handing the design onto the cake instead, and it turned out ok. Ethan liked it, so that was really all that mattered! :) I tried to make black icing (it turned out dark gray instead) for the outer space with silver sugar sprinkles for stars. I found the cute Darth Vader light saber candle at our local party store.

I made my favorite vanilla sheet cake and chocolate Texas sheet cake recipes for the cupcakes for the party at Wallabies. I used silver cupcake liners, and the same (almost) black icing with sugar sprinkles on the cupcakes themselves. Then, I created cupcake toppers to decorate them. I made "Happy Birthday," "5," "Ethan," and character ones. These were also pasted onto the goldenrod scrapbook paper with the 4" sticks glued between those pieces. Another fun treat for the party - light saber napkins! These each held a fork and spoon as well. Here is an awesome tutorial by the creator of this fun idea. I used her printable for the handles and printed them on a heavy card stock. They worked, and looked, great!

Finally, I created a coordinating thank you note to thank friends and family for the gifts they gave him. He's not quite up to writing the entire note himself yet, but at least he willingly signed them all for me. :)

And here are some pics of the birthday boy!! He had a fantastic time at the Wallabies party with his best buds and enjoyed all of the fun Star Wars themed items at the party at our house. I would say that both parties were a success! :)

Happy 5th Birthday to our big boy!