Easy Space Themed Birthday Party

When did birthday parties become $500 fetes with bouncy houses, 50 guests, and overall excessive mayhem? Here at Brighton Park, we love (LOVE!) to do birthday parties, but we  like keeping the mayhem and the cost at a reasonable level. I am by no means a party planning blog nor do I have the skill that those amazing party planning blogging ladies possess, but maybe these ideas and pictures can encourage and inspire you to throw a themed birthday party and know that you can do it with a small budget, without a masters degree in crafts or cake making, and that the kids are going to think you are AWESOME. Now we're talking!...

EASY SPACE THEMED BIRTHDAY PARTY

When my twin boys (who both have special needs due to birth trauma) turned 12, they wanted a space themed party.  It was a small party and relatively inexpensive. Here's some ideas for your own easy-breezy (and easy on the pocket book) space themed party...

Cake

Our cake was two bundt cakes, one turned on top of each other to create a sphere shape (to be the moon). Silver candles and an astronaut cut out from one of the themed plates actually turned out looking really good in person. At any rate, the boys loved it and I was able to do it myself...

Decorations

Decorations for this party were kept to a minimum. Easy breezy space themed plates (at the boys request) along with a plastic table cloth, made clean up a cinch. On another other table I used a black table cloth I already had.

A roll of star themed fabric for a great backdrop and was easily put up using simple thumbtacks.

The decoration on the food table was a Solar System Kit my kids made themselves a couple of days before the party. I love it when homeschool science can also double as: cooperative learning, small group working together for a common goal, party decor! We painted on a Thursday, let it dry and assembled it on Friday and it was ready to go on the Saturday of the party. (It now hangs in the boys bedroom)...

and star shaped suckers looked lovely in a glass jar vase tied with a black ribbon...

Activities

Pinata: Okay, Pinatas rarely come in a theme/colors we are wanting. They are usually bright, loud and kind of obnoxious looking. My friend Nikki at Tikkido did this post on how to turn a store bought pinata into a FAB pinata that matches your decor HERE. I used her inspiration, but instead of using crepe paper and a hot glue gun, (since I was short on time), I gave our pinata a makeover using tape and some plastic star themed paper...So...

That's better!

Oh, and you know that scene in Parenthood where after the birthday party is over you still see Steve Martin whacking that pinata to death to no avail? Yeah, that happens in real life too...

PLAYDOUGH (DOUBLED AS PARTY FAVOR)

We also had sparkly space playdough to keep little hands busy and doubled as a party favor (you know how I feel about party favors...they must be functional and not, you know, plastic c-r-a-p that will end up in a trash can on its way to a landfill three hours later).

This sparkly space dough was made by the lovely Nikki at Tikkido as well (it is seriously awesome to have friends who are crafty and always have great party ideas); stay tuned for she is graciously guest posting a "how to" tutorial  here on Brighton Park so you can make this homemade all natural playdough yourself!

BIRTHDAY WEEK FIELD TRIP

I love it when we can add activities as a family to the "birthday week" and so in honor of the boys picking a space themed party, we were able to take a family field trip earlier in that week to our local Science center where as a treat, we watched the "Tour of the Planets" movie there in their planetarium, in addition to exploring some hands on science fun...The boys have special needs but that doesn't mean they don't have a love of learning! (and it is my experience that most kids love this kind of field trip for a birthday just as much as Chuck E. Cheese or those without any educational merit)...

I hope this gave you a few ideas for your own space themed party. Here are a few others you might employ...

*make the leap from a space party to a STAR WARS PARTY. Use these ideas as a guide.
*Have the party at night and use black light or battery operated wands for an ethereal glow.
*For older kids, make the leap from space theme to Astronomy theme. Have fun learning about and finding constellations.

It wasn't fancy.

 It wasn't necessarily pretty.

But a few months later and my boys are still talking about it. Still talking about their "moon cake", still showing every visitor the solar system they made that hangs in their bedroom, still talking about the "space movie", and of course, we are all STILL LAUGHING about that pinata that just didn't want to break.

Birthday parties are about memories not big budgets or perfect cakes...and Memories are in the making and your kids will remember the making, not how perfect something was or wasn't...

May the force be with you ;-)

You might also like these other birthday parties I have thrown!


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