How to plan a Star Wars party part 2

Oh course you can't have a Star Wars party without light sabers. I had seen several posts using pool noodles and that is what I had plan to do.... except, there were no pool noodles to be had! I dragged my poor suffering husband all round the home centre looking for something suitable.

First I spotted some foam that is for covering water pipes but it was white and we actually picked it up and was one the way to pay for it when I spotted the green foam. Again this is supposed to be used to cover some kind of piping but double pipes. No problem, I just spilt it down the middle and cut it to size roughly 80cm each.

I used duck tape to make the handle and then smaller pieces of duck tape to make the 'buttons'. I really recommend using duct tape over other types of tape because it is super sticky and with stand up to a lot of beating. The padawan at the party took their light sabers in the pool and they held up fine. 

The other great thing is that they are actually quite soft so there is less chance of injury or kids hurting one another with them. I highly recommend that you make enough for each child and their dad!

How to plan a Star Wars party part 1

Birthdays are not a big deal in Japan and you don't get all the fancy party goods that you can get back home so if you want fancy goods you have to get a bit creative or dig deep into those pockets and order through the internet!

I thought I would share how I put the party together, I did a little at a time over the course of a few weeks and got Ebi-kun involved as much as possible. Now, although I did this for a Star Wars theme you can easily adapt most of it to any theme you like.

First up, decide on a theme.

Next get onto google images, I put in Star Wars and then used various characters names and had the image setting to high so I knew the quality would be OK for printing. I am on a mac so I basically dragged any image that I liked onto my desktop.

With something like Star Wars it is virtually impossible to trace an image back to it's original source to ask permission to use it but if you are wanting to use an individual artists work then you really should contact them about using their images. I am going to share how I prepared everything for our party but not the actual printables since I do not own any of the images.

What I will share with you is how to make...

• Cups
• Food labels/tags
• Yoda soda
• Light sabers
• Death Star piñata
• Sandpeople senbei
• Death Star watermelon
• Treasure hunt
• Goodie bag toppers
• Fridge magnets
• Mini colouring books (& resources)
• Yoda Birthday Cake

That would be one looooong post so I will break it up and do a bit at a time and then bundle it into an ebook at the end, how does that sound?

CUPS

what you need:

white sticker sheets for the printer

printer

images you have collected

scissors

plain cups

Use whichever software you have or there is software online that you can use, I used Photoshop. Crop your images so that they are about 5cm x 5cm and place them on the pace in a grid fashion (easier to cut that way). Print them out, cut out and stick onto your cups. I made ours all different so that everyone knew which cup was theirs plus it was fun to see which character you would get when you took a cup.

You can also use the same sheet to make stickers for the goodie bag or to decorate thank you notes etc.

Yoda Soda

what you need:

printer paper and printer

image

soda (pop) or juice, whatever the drink it you are using

ruler

scissors

The easiest thing to do it remove the existing label from the bottle then measure it, make sure that there is an overlap on the length to make it easier to glue onto the bottle. Using which ever software you are comfortable with, make a rectangle, mine was 10cm x 27cm.

In the centre of the rectangle add an image and some text. If you want to get fancy you can also add imaginary ingredients (if you have guests with allergies then listing what is written on the ordinal label is probably a good idea) and a bar code. Print, cut and stick to the bottle.

Food labels

what you need:

printer friendly card

images

scissors

One way to make the food more fun is to give it fancy or funny names, we tend to have pot luck parties so I had no idea what most people were bringing. I designed some blank labels and then as the food arrived I gave it a Star Wars themed name such as 'The Dark Side Pizza' and 'Han Solo & Cheese Sandwiches'. For the labels themselves I made a new grid, each rectangle was 5cm x 10cm and I placed one of the Star Wars pictures on each rectangle, leaving space to write in the food name afterwards. Of course you could use these for name tags or present tags too.

OK, next up will be the light sabers...

A Star Wars Party For A Seven Year Old..

Well, an almost seven year old, Ebi-kun will be 7 next Sunday but we had his party early because some of our friends leave this week for the summer. This will be a photo heavy post and I will do another post with the explanations of what I made and how...

Saturday was wet and miserable so we were praying that the weather would clear up for Sunday, it did thankfully so we started off with lunch (we didn't want the food sitting out so it would spoil). We did it as pot luck and had some great dishes such as The Dark Side Pizza, Wookie Cookies, Han (and cheese) Solo Butties all washed down with Yoda Soda - Refresh you, it will.

Now, normally I make a cake but because it is hot we have to leave it at home and my husband has to do a run home and pick it up when we are ready to eat. This year I decided on something different... watermelon! and In Japan they have a tradition called suicawari, which is basically, beat a watermelon with a big stick until it breaks. In the morning I carved it into the Death Star, we sang happy birthday and they beat it up! It was good to see kids tucking into a whole load of watermelon instead of cake.

Next up was Padawan Training, the young Padawan were split into 3 groups and had a Jedi master to guide them. First they had a treasure hunt, I had taken close up photos of things around the park so they had to find what it was and write it down.

Next up, they had to capture of of the strange creatures (crayfish) and bring it back to Jedi Jo

Finally, they had to climb through the wall without setting off the bells and then they were awarded a lightsaber

And led me to shout one of the strangest things I have ever told a bunch of kids to do...

" Now go over there and fight!"

Fight they did, the dads of course had to get involved, the girls were getting into it too. Now, you would have thought that was enough violence for one party but no, there was more...

The Death Star piñata that I had worked on all week.

So, yes more swinging of bats, misses and giggling. Sadly it fell off the string so they ended up kicking it around, which is what we usually do.

Once it split the usual chaos ensued, the bottom picture the big kids are sharing with M-chan who didn't get anything, they were all trying to palm off the pink candies onto her!

The battles then continued into the pool, it wasn't so hot but warm enough to paddle and splash around in, in fact we all agreed it was better that it being a roasting hot day.

Ebi-kun got a Bear Grylls book from the group - we decided a few years ago that it was better for the parents of the birthday child to buy a book and present it as if it is from the playgroup rather than exchanging gifts. I prefer it this way, there is no expectation of piles of presents and it is less stress for the parents too.

Here are the Jedi graduates, ready for another battle no doubt! It was great fun, the kids were all exhausted (me too) and we got to hang out with old friends before they leave again. It was boy heavy, most of the older girls have left so poor N-chan gets a bit fed up with having to put up with all the boys. 

So, I will do another post with my resources and how-to's, I will make a cake for Ebi-kun's actual  birthday on Sunday so I think I will wait until I have done that then put it all together for you. If you have an questions pop them in the comments section and I will make sure to answer them in the how-to post.