DIY Star Wars Birthday Party Drive-By

Last week my son turned eight and little pumpkin turned one. How time flies! In the Vietnamese culture, the first birthday is a HUGE deal with wedding-size family gatherings and a ginormous roast pig but who am I kidding… I love making every birthday a big reason to celebrate. Unfortunately, due to the current pandemic we couldn’t host our usual large gathering but that didn’t mean we couldn’t invite our wonderful extended family, friends, and neighbors over to help us wave, honk, and celebrate in an out-of-this world birthday drive-by.

Invitations were sent out with pictures of the birthday duo, inviting everyone to join us in the dark side for episodes 1 and 8.

Decorations:

My son and I browsed free clip art, coloring pages, and Pinterest together for inspiration. He decided he wanted to set the scene with a lot of aircrafts everywhere… TIE fighters in particular… and mom… make it 3D. Because I often have such grand visions, my kids think I can just make anything and since I couldn’t disappoint the young Jedi…

I made cutouts of simple TIE fighter silhouettes out of black poster board and hung them everywhere. I repurposed these space poster boards that previously served as the backdrop for my daughter’s Tangled birthday. I projected an image of the Millenium Falcon onto white poster board using a broad tip Sharpie and then adhered it with some double sided tape. Lastly, I created a printable banner that says Happy Birthday in Death Star font that is free to download here.

I made 3D TIE Fighters.

This was a fun family project. I used hot glue to adhere two toilet paper rolls to the sides of a 2-Liter bottle, and then attached two pieces of black cardstock that were cut into hexagons. The kids covered everything up with black paint and then we strung them up with fishing wire and push pins. Big brother liked these so much, he requested them to be moved to his room.

I made a large cutout of Darth Vader battling Luke to display on the window. This was another of my son’s requests. The kids enjoyed jumping on the couch to pretend duel. It took four black poster boards to create. As we plan on dressing up as Star Wars characters for Halloween, I will leave this up, covering it with white tissue paper, to create a nice silhouette for drive-by trick-or-treaters.

This is an X-Wing Starfighter made on a whim, after I watched my kids climb into the remains of a large Walmart box that I had used to create their Death Star pinata. The addition of a medium moving box, the sides of a diaper box, and four paper towel rolls, completed this vehicle fit for four young Jedi warriors. It seats my two oldest in the back and two youngest in the front comfortably. Everything was adhered together with hot glue, masking and duct tape, and took relatively little time to construct.

I made large wooden cutouts of Yoda, BB-8, and Jabba. They really helped to set the scene outside. I plan on pulling them out every May the 4th as well.

These make wonderful photo props. The kids like seeing how tall they are compared to all the characters. I have made numerous cutouts through the years and have acquired quite a collection. We have Sesame Street, Batman, Frozen, Minnie Mouse, and Tangled to name a few. Sometimes, I turn the boards into a version of a Pin the Tail on the Donkey game. Other times, I have a hole cut out to use as a bean bag toss activity which almost always turns into a let’s stick my head in the hole for a funny photo instead activity. I love this picture of little sister contemplating with Yoda.

Party Activities:

They dueled with Pool Noodle Light Sabers.

These pool noodle light sabers are everywhere on Pinterest and Disney also has a tutorial, however most of the tutorials involve decorating with tape. I decided to go with felt as the pool noodle ponies we made for sister’s birthday using felt lasted so long. As it is October, we couldn’t find any more pool noodles so we had to turn two pool noodle ponies into light sabers. My daughters wouldn’t let me touch Rainbow Dash or Twilight Sparkle. I simply cut off the pony heads… sorry Applejack and unnamed green pony. A bonus was I was able to create two more mini light sabers for my youngest two. I wrapped black felt around the base of the pool noodles securing it with hot glue, and finished them off with a red button made out of red felt scraps, adding more details with strips of silver duct tape. So quick and easy!

They colored.

My kids really enjoyed these coloring pages. I also found this simple png of the death star. It was fun to see my girls coloring the death star pink, purple, and rainbow and adding hair to the stormtroopers. I also made some personalized coloring pages for them. I create more personalized coloring pages here.

They made TIE fighter popsicle stick puppets.

My kids LOVE popsicle stick puppets so much that we buy them in boxes of 1000. This file can be printed out either in black and white or colored. Card stock works best for more durability. For older kids, you can just cut along the dotted lines to make four rectangles to hand out for them to cut the remaining details. Younger kids will likely require you to cut out all the individual pieces. The activity is both a puzzle as well as great for imaginative play. My kids enjoyed playing with their flying shadows on the walls as well. The free download is available below.

They smashed the Death Star

This was made using a large box, the sides of cereal boxes, black tissue paper, scraps of blue and white poster board, masking tape, and several glue sticks. I simply cut out the largest circle I could make out of the sides of a large box, traced it onto another side, and used cereal box sides in between, adhering everything first with masking tape, then covering everything up with glue, then tissue paper. I modeled it after a coloring sheet that my son had completed of the Death Star. I usually like to add another layer of crepe paper streamer that can be fringed but my son was happy with it as it was.

I made little pumpkin two felt boards to play with. She loved them. I made rough cutouts out of felt and flannel, adhering it to the sides of the kitchen island. It took a few reminders for her to understand not to pull off Yoda’s head. We used C3P0 to talk about shapes as well as body parts… shoulders, arms, etc. and we used Yoda to talk about emotions as well as body parts. I cut out extra pieces of felt into different shapes (rectangles, squares, etc.) and my older kids enjoyed adding hats, unibrows, moustaches, and other features. Little pumpkin learned to say eye with this activity. It also gave her something to do besides hang onto my leg when I had to load the dishwasher.

Food:

Big brother requested a fondant covered chocolate cake with stars and as many Star Wars characters as we could manage. The cake recipe can be found here. I used this recipe for the marshmallow fondant. Luke and Chewie were toys passed down from Daddy. I just washed them really well before placing them on the cake. I purchased these molds from Amazon to make milk chocolate Darth Vaders and I used white Wilton candy melts to make the R2D2s. My kids love playing with the leftover fondant and my son created the multicolor fondant stars on the cake himself.

Little pumpkin received a Princess Leia pumpkin cake. I used this delicious recipe from Live Well Bake Often. Leia’s eyes are leftover chocolate melts and her heart-shaped mouth is a marshmallow from the kids’ Lucky Charms cereal. Leia’s hair is more cream cheese frosting with brown coloring added.

As we were also celebrating little pumpkin’s first birthday, we followed some Vietnamese first birthday traditions. We feasted on some traditional foods. My parents made banh cuon (rice flour filled with pork, mushrooms, and shrimp), bun thit nuong (vermicelli noodles with the most delicious beef), and xoi (sweet sticky yellow rice made with mung beans). My husband and I made these delicious egg rolls. After we ate, we placed some random objects on a plate to see what little pumpkin would choose. Some Vietnamese people believe that what a child is drawn to pick on their first birthday will help to predict their future career choice. Little pumpkin picked up my pink heart hole puncher… hmmm maybe a future crafter.

Favors:

Each guest received:

I have a big supply of these bags on Amazon and printed out free clip art I found to decorate. I also made tags with a Yoda-ish image that I created that says “Yoda best!” The tags are free to download here.

The bags were filled with stickers and tattoos from Party City, coloring pages, as well as a Star Wars inspired paper cup craft and worksheets that I created.

The pages contain the cutouts you need for the craft as well as two copies of directions that you can use when handing out the craft. The first page can also be printed out onto regular paper to use to decorate black paper cups for a Star Wars party or onto cardstock to make gift tags for the Star War fans in your life.

This writing activity is a fun way for kids to write and read words with the digraphs CH and TH. Young learners can just brainstorm all the words they can think of with these digraphs to write down with some help with spelling while older learners can be more creative in the development of their story. The kids had fun writing about Chewbacca’s cherry chocolate cheescake and cheesy chicken chimichangas. I create more worksheets and fun educational activities for kids here.

Each guests also received:

I purchased the TIE fighter and Millenium Falcon cutters from CookieCutterSupply on Etsy. They are very sturdy and well made. I definitely see a lot of future use in them. I also appreciated that although the company was super busy, they took the time to accommodate me and made sure to get my cutter to me on time for my kids’ birthdays. I used this recipe for the cookies. The kids enjoyed making their treats fly… into their mouths.

The cupcakes were vanilla (I used this recipe) with THE BEST vanilla buttercream frosting from Two Sisters. The toppers are from Sam at Simple Everyday Mom. My kids appreciated that she made both pink and blue options and they loved all the featured art with light sabers, Boba Fett, the droids, Darth Vader, as well as symbols of the Jedi Order and Rebel Alliance. I liked how quick they were to put together… just print, cut with 2 inch circle punch, and tape to a toothpick.

My greatest joy in creating these parties for my children is seeing all their excitement. These are pictures my son drew in the days leading up to his birthday. They make my heart so happy!

I hope this post inspires you to try and create something fun with your young Jedis. May the force be with you!