How to throw the perfect outer space astronaut party

Like all perfectly normal six-year-old girls, Luna wanted an astronaut space party for her seventh birthday. Just kidding, we are anything but normal, but I adored this theme. She's always had an interest in astronomy that I am happy to cultivate. When she chose this theme, my mind went wild with possibilities. After some intensive Pinterest browsing, this is how it turned out:

Outer Space Party Decor

The decor was easy; I went with the following:

• A homemade moon piñata (terrible idea!)
• A print-your-own space banner
• A few starry sky table covers
• Lots of silver, teal, and pink balloons
• A set of silver foil balloons in moon and star shapes
• A cardboard rocket playhouse that the kids never finished coloring
• A set of home-made astronaut helmets as fun photo props

Here are a few more photos of decor.

Y'all, can we talk about this piñata? In Colombia, it's hard to find a good piñata that won't fall apart after one solid whack, so I decided to make my own. Bad idea. The shape itself was not too hard to make out of cardboard. I just followed this tutorial from Oh Happy Day. Then I proceeded to buy tissue paper, cut it into little fluttery strips, and glue each strip to the moon shape. This took FOREVER. Since that day, I have found a local Colombian business that makes custom piñatas, so my days of gluing tissue strips are over.

Outer Space Party Food

No space party would be complete without outer-space themed food! I tried to come up with easy-to-make items that would reflect the theme without taking too much time to prepare. The most important food item at any party is, of course, the cake. I almost always insist on making my own cakes, which are kind of hit-and-miss. My moon cake was somewhere between hit and miss:

I made the chocolate moon cake in a ball pan, but I admit that I was afraid to do the entire ball. So I settled for half of a moon. The frosting was my favorite whipped buttercream (to die for!) with a few Wilton candy melts added in to form craters. I tried sprinkling the whole thing with edible luster dust and used it to paint the "craters" silver, but this didn't look as cool as I had planned. Thankfully, once the toothpick flag and astronaut girl were stuck into the cake, it did resemble a moon. The candles were the best part; those are actually star-shaped sparklers!

As for the snacks, I put together the following:

• Rocket-shaped fruit skewers
• "Space Pop" popcorn bags
• Chips and dip
• Planet cake pops

These planet pops are cute aren't they? They better be. It took me almost six hours to make these damn things. I have a love-hate relationship with cake pops. I love how they look and how they taste, but I hate making them. The melted candy melts always get thick and lumpy, and I have to rush to finish the decorating before the melty stuff cools. It's just messy, tedious, and time-consuming. If I could buy them in Colombia, I might consider it, but I know they would be expensive. Anywho, they look cute in the photos. Here are some additional snack and cake photos:

Outer Space Party Games

We had a lot of activities at this event, which was made all the more fun by the huge turnout; 20 kids showed up! I greeted each kid with a homemade jet pack made from spray-painted soda bottles. These turned out adorable, if I do say so myself. I used this tutorial, although I implemented velcro instead of elastic to strap on the jet packs. They were a big hit.

My kids wore astronaut costumes because, of course they did. The other activities we organized for the kids were:

• Planet ball toss (using cheap wastepaper baskets)
• Color your own space scene using outer space stickers, neon pens, and white out pens
• Pin the Earth on the solar system
• Make your own paper straw rocket
• Piñata time!

I got a little wrapped up in all the activities, so the photos aren't great, but there are a few to give you an idea of all the fun that was had:

Needless to say, we had a bilingual blast that included our entire Colombian family, a lot of Luna's Colombian classmates, and a few of our expat friends as well. This one will go down in history as one of my (and Luna's) favorite days of all time. Have a question about how we pulled it off? Send me a quick note!