Entertaining

A Rocket Ship Birthday Party

Hannah Spitzfaden May 28, 2020 no Comments

Hi ya’ll! This past Memorial Day weekend, we celebrated our son turning FIVE! (So, now we have a 5 year old, 3 year old, and 1 year old) He requested a rocket ship party months ago and although we had to deviate from the original plan a good amount, we were still able to celebrate our sweet boy’s big day. Honestly, I thought I would be writing a post about our daughter’s golden birthday (Golden Birthday: when you turn as old as the day of the month your birthday falls on, i.e., our daughter turned three on the 3rd of the month) before I wrote this post, but the global events happening now prohibited us from having a party for her. We did our best to have a drive-by parade on her birthday, but the weather did not cooperate. Luckily she is only three and doesn’t know any different and wasn’t too bothered by it – she was just as happy to celebrate her older brother’s birthday (where she also received some late birthday presents).

Luke’s birthday marks the end of what I call “birthday season” in our house as our kids have birthdays in March, April and May (with my birthday falling in March as well) and although he picked the theme months ago and I had every intention to start on the decorations early, time got away from me and I was down to the wire. But with the help of family and friends, curbside pick-up at Target and Walmart, and Amazon Prime, I was able to execute Luke’s “rocket ship party” theme to his satisfaction.

Originally, we planed to have this party at our house in Austin, as Luke wanted to invite many of his friends. Then the coronavirus forced us into quarantine. In Texas, things have started to reopen slowly since the beginning of May but we were still not at the point of inviting 10 families to our house. Ultimately, we revised our plan to celebrate at my parent’s house in Carrollton (the site of Kate’s first birthday party), where we could celebrate with family and a few close friends. Luke was just as excited to live his best life in my parent’s pool all weekend and understood that when the time is right, he can meet all his buddies out for ice cream.

The Decor

As always, I started with searching Pinterest for ideas, then narrowed down a color scheme. For this rocket ship party, I choose to use royal-to-dark blue, white, and silver, with pops of red and orange. It is a tradition of mine to make a “Happy Birthday” banner to match the theme for each of my kids’ birthdays and this one was no exception.

I used my cricut machine to cut out the letters (font: Kefa) and squares for the banner, then hole punched them and strung them on silver ribbon. Since I had plenty of paper and already had my machine out, I made a second banner that read “Blast Off” to tie in the rocket ship theme. I hung this banner on the fireplace mantel with photos of Luke from his past birthdays (including his BIRTH day) – its so fun to walk down memory lane and see how your child grows over the years!

I couldn’t help myself but to find another excuse for a balloon garland so I convinced my mother-in-law to help me put it together and I’m happy to report it went faster than last time since I had one trial under my belt from Kate’s first birthday. We chose to keep the balloon garland limited to blue, white and silver balloons, and Luke even picked out the marbled balloons from Michael’s.

I added a rocket balloon to the top end of the balloon garland to make it appear as if the rocket is launching into space and the balloons are the exhaust from the rocket. I also added silver foil fringe and star shaped foil balloons for some extra fun. In order to hang the balloon garland on the wall, we used white string looped around the balloon garland strip (the strip of plastic the balloons are attached to) and attached it to the wall using a push pin. We secured it this way in three different spots and it stayed up for a few days without budging.

Here’s our push pin and string contraption.

I also added a few other rocket ship themed things to the dessert (& snack) table. I used my letter board to display a quote by EE Cummings, the astronaut was borrowed from a friend, and what space party wouldn’t be complete without STARburst? (Side note: a few people asked me where I got just the orange and red starburst that I used for the party. I didn’t. I bought a big ol’ bag at Walmart and picked out the orange and red ones. Just a little pro tip for ya!)

While the balloon garland and dessert table were popular, the most special part of the party was the kids’ table. My mother-in-law helped me create a jet pack (made from recycled soda bottles) for each child attending the party – we even made a mini jet pack for my 1 year old.

The jet packs were a huge hit and the kids loved pretending to blast off into space. And the best part? I already had everything to make the jet packs except for the $2 yellow tissue paper! I collected a few soda (& juice) bottles over the last month and I picked up a few from friends and neighbors that saved them from the recycling bin for me. For the shoulder straps, we used thick ribbon and added velcro on each end. We cut slits in pieces of cardboard and threaded the straps through the slits, then attached the velcro on the ends to secure it in place. Next, we taped the bottles together with duct tape, then stapled & taped the piece of cardboard to the backside. We stuffed the bottles with fiber-fill before adding yellow tissue paper and orange crepe paper for the jet pack flames. I embellished each pack with felt & foam stars that I hot glued to the jet packs, with a sticker representing each child’s first initial.

In addition to his jet pack, Luke was outfitted with a birthday crown made by a very talented friend of mine. She has made Luke a birthday crown that matches the theme of his party for the last several years and its such a fun tradition we have started.

The kids equally loved playing with these rocket balloons at the party too. I happened upon these as I was searching for a rocket shaped balloon, and vaguely knew what they were, probably from a commercial many moons ago. The balloons come with a hand pump to blow them up, then when you release the balloon from your grasp, they wiz around the room (or yard) while making a lovely ~~screeching~~ whistling noise. The kids got a total kick out of them and since they come in a pack of 100, its the gift that keeps on giving.

The Menu

We kept the menu simple with grilled hamburgers and hotdogs (and all the fixings) as our main course. Along with them, we served homemade pasta salad, warm german potato salad, grilled corn on the cob, and potato chips. Before dinner we served appetizers of cheese (cut into star shapes) and crackers and veggies and dip.

Luke requested space cupcakes for his birthday, and you know its not a birthday party with out Pearl’s Pastries amazing cookies. I used foil liners for the vanilla cupcakes and tinted the vanilla frosting blue before adding m&ms (for the sun and the planets), white nonpareils, and silver star sprinkles (which Luke also picked out).

Okay, I know I’ve probably said this before, but you will not believe the detail Chelsie, over at Pearl’s Pastries, puts into these cookies. I merely told her the theme and my color scheme and she comes up with these creative creations that hit it out of the park every time. Oh, and her cookies taste like heaven too.

Despite the whole quarantine situation, we had a lovely time celebrating our oldest child turning 5! (where has the time gone?) Do you have any birthdays coming up? What party themes are your kids requesting lately? I’d love to hear about them! Comment below or connect with me on instagram @elleandjaydesign.