Star Wars Birthday Party Decor Reveal and Party Wrap Up

Wow!!! What busy a weekend! My Son celebrated his "Royal" birthday this year. He turned 8 years old on the 8th of April... and to make it even more special it happened to fall on Easter Sunday this year, what a lucky boy! So this year he wanted a Star Wars-themed party. My son and husband both had to help me a lot... I know the main characters and that's about it! Good thing there is a lot out there on the subject :)

Here is my little Jedi... or shall I say my little Padawan  (I learned a thing or two, lol!) Youngling (corrected by husband).

I made him his own Jedi shirt, click here for how to make your own personalized shirt. All of his little friends got a Jedi robe as well! Super easy no-sew, simply tear some brown fabric the width of the child and then make another tear in the middle a little over halfway up the cloth (that's where the neckline will be). Then just tear a thin piece for the belt. Pull off the excess string and there you have a 2 minute Jedi robe... remember it doesn't have to be perfect they are probably never going to wear them again!) 

Here is the dessert table and treat table... so many goodies! Use what you have to decorate... when the Star Wars bobbleheads came out last year at Mc Donald's my son just had to have them. I'm not sure if he just wants a Happy Meal for the food or just the toy... probably the TOY! Well since we had them I put them to use. The tag on the goody bags says" Thanks for coming... may the force be with you!" Click here on how I made the backdrop. To see how I made the Clone trash containers click here. For the lightsabers click here.

The table...

I set up the tables so that everybody could see each other by pushing two tables together. A little crowded but it worked! With 17 kids....yup 17! I wanted to be prepared, so I had made place cards with their names on them so they knew exactly where to sit. There was no arguing about who sat by who ;) Here is a closer look at the table, on the bench was their Jedi robes!

For food, I kept it really simple... A veggie platter "Veggie Vaders", a meat and cheese platter "Darth Platter", hot dogs were "Sabre Dogs" and of course "Yoda Soda" I need to give Tomas some credit for coming up with the food names!

Here is what I got the parents to fill out when they dropped off their children... just in case! Thankfully no one needed to be called :)

Party Time!!!

After everybody had finished eating we started off by pinning the saber on Yoda. 

Then we did some Jedi training. We divided up into two teams, the Yellow and the Red Sabres. They then raced the Jedi obstacle course... the team with the quickest time won. 

They then battled... the battle was between one yellow and one red team member. With their sabers the had to keep a balloon up in the air, the last player to touch the balloon before it fell on the floor lost, giving the other team a point. 

Next up was musical chairs with the Star War themed music.

Since it was Easter weekend, I had to do some Easter crafting. The kids each dyed a Star Wars-themed wrapped egg. They also did an Easter egg hunt. A few of the eggs contained a blue-chip which they could turn in for a prize!

Finally, it was time for the Darth Vader Pinata. They were so excited when the treats came falling down!

For every game, there was always a winner, but at the end of the games, I made sure that those that didn't win still got to pick something out of the prize box... I think they all were pretty happy! I know my son was, especially after all the new Star War toys he got for his birthday!

I hope you liked a few of my ideas on throwing your own Star Wars party.

Happy planning and happy crafting!

Ilda :)

Star Wars Baking - Cake, Cake Pops & Cupcakes for Star Wars Birthday Party

Finally, everything is ready!!! All that is left is 17 kids running around... Wow, it's gonna be wild!

So today I'm going to share with you all the baking I've done for the party. Cake, cupcakes, and cake pops... yup that's a lot of cake! Hopefully, everyone likes cake!

So I will start off with the cake... I really had no idea what I was going to make for a cake. I knew I wanted to make it small. Since I already had some black fondant in my pantry I thought why not make a Darth Vader head. This is a 6-inch marble cake, shhhhhh... it's Betty Crocker! Covered with a buttercream icing. To form the mouth I just used some Rice Krispies treats.

Yup, I just used 3 packages of Rice Krispies, just roll and mold to the shape you like. Real easy to work with. Then just cover the Krispies well with buttercream icing.

Not bad! My little Darth Vader head, he actually turned out pretty cute! (If Darth Vader could be cute?) I have him sitting on the top tear of my cupcake stand. 

Next, here are my Clone Cake Pops! They look like they are lined up to charge. For tips on how I make my cake pops click here. These are white cake on the inside, dipped in white chocolate candy melts, and decorated with black royal icing.

I didn't think these cake pops would ever end. One cake mix package made around 60+ cake pops. Totally OK, because I thought I would send them to school with my son to share with his grade 2 class.

He looks so sad :( all wrapped up and ready to eat... I guess he knows his fate, lol!

All sealed up and ready for delivery!

And finally the cupcakes... I made chocolate and vanilla cupcakes, everyone should be happy! Hopefully not crazy happy from the sugar rush, hehe! They are going to look super cute with the cupcake toppers I made :)

I'll make sure to take lots of pics of the party to share with you all... Happy Birthday, 8th Tomas! 

Well it's getting late and I'd better get some beauty sleep so I can be ready to entertain all those kids! 

Wish me luck!!!

Ilda :)

Up Next the Star Wars Party Reveal and Wrap Up!

First Communion Cake Pops | Plus Tips I Learned From the Process

And the baking begins... 

So the first time I made cake pops it was kind of a disaster, I had watched you-tube videos but still, it was a mess. They kept falling apart because they were so heavy and dense and it was really frustrating! This time was much better, like anything else you learn from your mistakes!

I ended up using a cake pop maker this go around. So much easier and the cake balls were not as heavy so they didn't fall off the sticks. (I do have to admit that the baked cake pops don't taste as good as the dense cake pops that are made with cake batter and icing)

Something else I learned from last time was that the balls kept rolling around and staining the sticks with wet chocolate. This time I used an old Styrofoam egg carton. It worked wonderfully and made it easy to transport to the fridge as well!

I don't have a fancy cake pop stand, so I used floral foam to support the cake pops while they dried. All I did was take a sharp knife and poke holes all around the foam, piercing the plastic wrap that the foam came in. That way it kept all the foam flakes inside the plastic and made it easy to wipe off so I can reuse next time (you could also use cling wrap or tin foil to wrap up the foam)

Having the cake pop on the foam also made it easy to pick up and rotate the position of the pops as I decorated the top!

More tips... 

• when melting your chocolate if you find the consistency too thick, add a tiny bit of shortening until you find it easy enough to coat the pops. (Thanks to my sister In-law Rozana for that one, made a huge difference!)
• The other thing I did was melt my chocolate in microwave in a deep bowl.  Placed a smaller bowl underneath the chocolate bowl with boiling water, this kept the chocolate from solidifying once I started dipping the cold cake pops.

Hope these tips help future cake pop makers... if you have any more tips I would love to hear from you as well!

Well gotta run and get ready for an evening shift at the Hospital. Thanks for stopping by!

Ilda :)

Up next the Communion Cake!