Turning 30, Star Wars style

Seems the older we get the more we dread birthdays, especially the milestone ones. I thought I’d hit the jackpot when I turned 16. I could drive. Now, I don’t really enjoy driving. 18 was a good year – I was officially an adult, graduated high school, went off to college, could vote, etc. Turning 21 was a blur, if you get my drift. But 30 is lurking around the corner for me. My husband, however, just turned the big 3-0! He really dreads his birthday because it’s just nothing special to him anymore and this one was the pits – turning 30 – oh man. I always look forward to my birthday, but before R came along, they inevitably disappointed me.

So I decided to make this one extra special and throw him a blow-out Star Wars themed bash with all of his friends. The man loves Star Wars. A lot.
The party was an adult costume party decorated to the nines. We pulled together a pretty decent Han Solo costume on the fly for the hubs – Han is his all time favorite character. He went all out on the holster since it’ll be a keepsake, but the rest was fairly inexpensive – navy Dickies, red seaming fabric pressed on using stitch witchery, stripes made with a sharpie, white clearance shirt with a slit in the collar, black BDU jacket with the sleeves cut off, Han Solo toy blaster spray painted, and Jedi boots.

I had fun coming up with decorations – I bought vintage posters for each of the original trilogy and put them up; I found the perfect gold giant 3 and 0 balloons at Party City; I even bought a life-size Han Solo wall decal.


I had tons of help from many our awesome creative friends coming up with ideas for the party, including decorating our kitchen to resemble the Cantina in Episode IV.


We set out giant galvanized buckets for sodas and beer.


We grilled out burgers and hot dogs since that’s easy for a crowd. I added some Star Wars flair by making funky labels for everything. If you want to use them for your Star Wars party, I’m sharing my template at the end of this post.





Remington has a shoe box full of Star Wars figurines from his childhood that he refuses to part with and I put them to good use for the party!

And then there were the desserts…

Chocolate chocolate and chocolate peanut butter cupcakes topped with Han in Carbonite.


Chai spiced cupcakes with whipped cream cheese frosting and white chocolate R2-D2’s.


To make the chocolate molds, I used silicone ice trays we already had like this one and this one.


Getting the logo decoration or any simple outline decoration for that matter, onto the top of the cake was simple enough. I printed the logo out, cut around it with an x-acto knife (don’t forget to save the tiny centers to the A and R), laid the outline on top of the cheesecake with wax paper around it to protect the rest of it and gently shook cocoa powder over it with a fine mesh strainer. Then just gently peel it away and Voila!





Happy Birthday to my bub! I hope it was a special day!

Here is a link to the template: Star Wars food labels

Thanks to Erin for taking photos at the party! If it had been left up to me, we’d have nothing to remember it by other than memories – my brain was mush after getting everything planned and pulled together. 🙂