Star Wars birthday party

Tom is turning four next week. When he was two, he was obsessed with trains, so we decided on a train party for him. When he was three, he liked race cars, but then a musician friend was able to come, so we had a music party. Now that he's four, we figure he can start being part of the decision-making process. Last month I asked Tom what kind of party he'd like.

He said, "A Star Wars party."

I didn't influence this in any way -- I swear to GOD.

The Star Wars stuff at the party store (and online) is mostly crap. Or expensive. I demand cheap crap! T-shirts were on sale at Michaels ($2 each), so I made another freezer paper stencil. Each guest gets a T-shirt.

The first stencil lasted for five shirts, which was just fantastic. Several of the smaller holes were closed up by all the paint, so I made a second stencil for the last two shirts. But it totally ripped to shreds while trying to iron it to the second one (I was in a hurry and not paying attention to how wet the paint still was). I didn't really want to make another stencil, so I fished the first one out of the recycling, and it agreed to one more shirt. I'm glad I didn't have to cut another one!

We're going to play games with lightsabers, so we needed, well, lightsabers. I used paper towel cardboard tubes, silver paint (which kept rubbing off, so I put a clear coat on top), and self-adhesive foam.

The blades are going to be those really long 2" balloons you can use to make animals with (which we had). This way they can pick out what color of blade they want, too. (Tom knows which character has which color -- a little spooky and totally makes me well up.) The balloons snug into these tubes perfectly. I know we'll have several pop over the course of the morning, but I've got a whole bag, so we should be okay.

Karyn is still deciding about cake. I'll post that when she's done.