![\"Supplies\"](\"http:\/\/derekbruff.org\/blogs\/disfordad\/files\/2014\/05\/916019_305582746263030_1368042451_n.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nTwelve months ago, I noticed all the #MaytheFourth Star Wars fun on Twitter and decided that, this year, the girls and I would join in. A few weeks ago we started planning, drawing up a list of the girls’ friends who like Star Wars (not all 6-year-old and 10-year-old girls do) and searching Pinterest and mom blogs for ideas. Thanks, moms, for putting together creative<\/a> Star Wars<\/a> parties<\/a> and then blogging about them!<\/p>\n Once we had found enough ideas for crafts and snacks and decorations that I thought we could pull off, we sent out invitations — in the style of the “crawl” text you see at the start of every Star Wars movie. Everyone we invited was able to come, although a couple of the parents didn’t get the “May the Fourth” pun and thought it was the ten-year-old’s birthday party. I had to assure them that no gifts were needed! Sometimes you just need to throw a party — no birthday required.<\/p>\n For other fabric newbies: You buy fabric by the yard. If you order, say, seven yards of fabric, you get a rectangle seven yards long by one yard wide. That made cutting the Padawan robes easier, since the 36″ side was already cut for me. I just measured out 22″ segments and cut eleven of them.<\/p>\n I realized during the first craft that I really needed an extra set of hands. One of the parents stayed (thanks, Ben!), but with a four-year-old, two six-year-olds, and a seven-year-old needing help, not to mention the ten-year-olds needing hot glue, we could have used three adults for this phase of the party. Next time I do something like this (and, yes, there will be a next time!) I’m going to hire one of my babysitters to assist. Lily and her school friend were always last to complete their projects, and I wish I had arranged for someone to help them throughout the afternoon.<\/p>\n C-3PO<\/b>: “Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately three thousand seven hundred and twenty to one!<\/i>”<\/p>\n Han Solo<\/b>: “Never tell me the odds.<\/i>“<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Han might not care about the odds, but I do!<\/p>\n Pro tip: If you’re going to have eleven kids make light sabers out of pool noodles and duct tape, make sure to have more than one roll of duct tape available! Or have a whole lot of strips of tape cut ahead of time. We got an assembly line going pretty quickly at the party (thanks again, Ben!), but I could have saved some time during this craft if I had planned ahead a little more.<\/p>\n Before the kids made their lightsabers, however, they had to search for Kyber Crystals in the caves of the planet Ilum. That’s what the Padawans did in\u00a0Season 5, Episode 6<\/a>\u00a0of the Clone Wars<\/em> animated series, since each lightsaber must have one of these special crystals embedded in it. (The girls have seen most of the Star Wars movies, but it’s the Clone Wars<\/em> TV show that really turned them into fans.) At the party, I hid brightly colored costume jewels all over the backyard. The kids ran all over the backyard finding crystals, then inserted them in the handles of their light sabers. I had no idea the kids would get into this search so much! Each one was thrilled when she found her crystal.<\/p>\n At this point in the party, our little Padawans really looked the part — robes, braids, lightsabers — so it was time for a photo shoot. I had picked up a few yards of starfield fabric at Jo-Ann’s, black fabric with stars all over it. We hung this fabric over the laundry room doors and had the kids pose in front of it. We got some great shots from this (thanks one more time, Ben!), which was part of my plan. I knew I wouldn’t have much opportunity to take photos, since I was running the party, so I built a photo op into the schedule. The starfield backdrop was my idea, too — pretty much the only idea I contributed to the party without help from Pinterest.<\/p>\n<\/a>When the kids arrived last Sunday afternoon, each was greeted by a Jedi master (me in a full-on Jedi robe and $10 plastic light saber) and outfitted with a Padawan robe to start their Jedi training.\u00a0Padawan robe: Very simple. Brown cotton fabric, cut into rectangles about 36″ by 22″, folded in half, with a neck hole cut out. No sewing required. Belts made from 36″ lengths of some kind of rope-like cord we found at the craft store. This was my first time buying fabric, but the staff at Jo-Ann’s were very kind to this newbie. I think it helped that one of the women working the fabric counter had not only heard of May the Fourth but had participated in Free Comic Book Day earlier in the day. Geeks in the fabric store — who knew?<\/p>\n<\/a>Since this was a Star Wars party full of girls, there were lots of crafts. We started by making Padawan braids, since all Jedi-in-training wear these. This was Hannah’s idea, and she did a great job figuring out the supplies we would need (pincer-style hair clips, a few varieties of brown thread, several shades of brown beads, hot glue) and teaching her friends how to make the braids. The little kids (and some of the big kids) needed help and I had to do all the hot glue work so this craft took a little while, but the final products looked very authentic.<\/p>\n<\/a>After all our Padawans had their braids attached, we moved on to the next craft: pool noodle lightsabers. Take a pool noodle, cut it in half, wrap one end with grey or silver duct tape as a handle, decorate the handle with black tape or Sharpie, and you get a pretty cool lightsaber. Bonus: The kids can whack the heck out of each other and no one gets hurt!<\/p>\n<\/a>Next came Pizza (the Hut) and assorted food from Admiral Ackbar’s Snack Bar. (Not a trap.) Han “Rolos,” Chewies (brownies), Ewok food (regular and chocolate Teddy Grahams), TIE fighters (slightly melted marshmallows sandwiched between hexagonal Oreo thin crisps), and the hit of the party, Vaderade. The kids were crazy about Vaderade, which was just fruit punch, Sprite, and a little strawberry sherbet. It occurred to me that ten-year-olds rarely go to the kind of receptions that serve punch, which made Vaderade extra special. They kept trying to guess the ingredients! (My response: Pure evil Sith Force.) After all the lightsaber action earlier in the party, the girls needed a little down time, so they watched “Duel of the Droids<\/a>,” one of the best R2D2 Clone Wars<\/em> episodes, while they snacked.<\/p>\n<\/a>Finally, we had a couple more crafts for the girls as they were waiting to get picked up. The older girls made origami Yodas (and one Admiral Ackbar<\/a>) with guidance from Hannah (who loves origami), while Lily and her friend made droids (R2 units, to be precise) with construction paper and glue sticks. Not all the girls finished these crafts, but it was an easy way to wrap up the afternoon. We had a few more lightsaber duels in the front yard, too. One of Hannah’s friends is seriously into Star Wars, and she had some real Jedi moves. So much fun.<\/p>\n<\/a>I should add something about our decorations. We didn’t go all out, but we did pick up a couple of Star Wars posters and hang them on the walls in the family room and kitchen. Good thing I still haven’t gotten around to putting up many pictures in my new house, right? We also printed out a bunch of Star Wars quotes (“No, I am your father.” “Let the Wookie win.” “I have a bad feeling about this.”) using a Star Wars font we found online and posted them around the house. Hannah’s friend who is seriously into Star Wars brought over a couple of life-sized cardboard cutouts of Star Wars characters, too.<\/p>\n