Star Wars -7yr- Hans Solo Sandwiches

We planned a Star Wars Party for my seven-year-old nephew. He had just come out of a life-threatening illness. He had cat scratch fever and got menningitis and enchephalitis from it. He almost died. He is a miracle boy. We wanted to celebrate his 7th birthday with something special and he loves Star Wars. I got most of my ideas from this site. Thanks everyone for some great ideas.

Well, we decorated my sister's shed with black industrial plastic. We draped some black material over everything we possibly could. A staple gun works best. I bought the two posters, one of Darth and one of the Jedi Knights. We did two sides good and evil. I put glow in the dark stars, found a local dollar store, all over the black plasitc and material and I also cut out yellow stars from poster board and that had a dramatic affect. We had stars all over the walls.

My brother-in-law even covered the ceiling with black plastic. Then he shredded some of the plasitc in the doorway..so you had to walk through this shredded black plasitc hanging down from the doorway to get in. That had a really cool effect. I bought the Darth Vader and Yoda cardboard cutout standees online. I added my kids'lava lamps and a disco ball for dramatic effect. I downloaded (legally) some star wars music from iTunes and played it during the party.

For food and drink we had one side presented with Yoda Soda which was a punch made of gingerale and lime sherbet (a family fav. For all parties) and the other side was Darth Malt which was strawberry soda and vanilla icecream in a punch bowl. We had Chewbacca chips and Planets (cheetos shaped like O's). We had a trail mix in colored ice cream cone cups (red and green). BBQ sandwhiches were Hans Solo sandwiches. I made pretzel rods dipped in white chocolate and rolled them in red sprinkles for the Darthside and green sprinkles for the Yoda side. These were called Yoda's pretzel sabors or Darth's pretzel sabors. 

We had Darth Vador trick-or-treat buckets on the table for centerpieces. They had flashing pacifier suckers in them. I made light sabers out of the pvc pipe insulation and cut them in half. I wrapped the would be handle part with duck tape and spray painted the saber part neon orange. The kids loved these the paint comes off easily though and the kids had neon orange all over themselves from whopping each other with the sabers. It washes off easily. I bought glow-in-the-dark necklaces for all the kids.   We played Space Bingo that I bought from Scholastic Book Club. The kids loved this game.

My games were not physical because my nephew's brain is still healing from his illness so I tried to come up with games that he could play without getting hurt. We played Star Wars Candy Walk. This game was created by printing out some Star Wars characters and taping them to the seat part of a chair. Put the chairs in a circle. Put the names of the characters in a hat and play the music. The children walk around the chairs (on the inside of the circle) and when the music stops, they sit down. No one is out. There are enough chairs for all players.

Then have the birthday boy/girl pick a name from the hat and whoever is sitting on that character wins some candy. We also played the moon rock game. I wrapped milkyways and starburst and star wars stickers in foil and hid them around the yard. It was a treasure hunt. Then we had the Darth's detonator game. I put a flashing ball in a pringles can and passed it around the circle whoever passed the can and made the ball flash was out.

For our last game we did a Star Wars pinata. The kids just love a pinata there is no doubt about it. Once the pinata was broken we had all the kids stand in a cirlce before they could start grabbing candy..that way everyone had a fair chance to get some candy. My favorite part of the party was when everyone read the sign I made outside of the party room. I bought a big black card stock-like board and wrote in chalk : In a galaxy far, far away on Ocotober 21, 1998, a baby boy was born. The Jedi Council named him CHILD'S NAME. They knew he would be the Chosen One. In the 7 years following Young Beau's life he was learning the powers of the force. Unexpectedly there was a disturbance in the force. The darkside tried to conquer our young jedi knight but the force inside him was stronger and he won the battle!  Everyone who came in read the sign and it meant something special because of what my nephew had been through and also it went with our theme. The words I used came from this sight..I just changed the ending a little.

Thanks everyone for your great ideas. It made a very special day for our little miracle boy and one he will never forget. I asked him if he read the sign I made and he said, "yeah, I'm the chosen one."