A Star Wars Themed Big Boy Room

You'd think after this much practice I'd remember to take proper BEFORE pictures. But no. My child's room wasn't quite this boring before. There were no curtains and it had the same bland taupe paint color as did most of the rest of the house. But it did have a nice red bookshelf which hinted at our good intentions of decorating his room. He informed me earlier this year that he was too old for the Choo Choo bedding he had in his room - I would call it a theme but that would be stretching it. He had a nice train quilt and RxR decorative pillow. That's as close to a theme as it got.

When he told me he was too old for the train theme he also informed me that he'd be needing a Transformers or Star Wars room theme, please. I have nothing against Transformers but I knew it was a phase and if I spent my time on that theme he'd be over it in a month. He's loved Star Wars forever so I figured that might last longer.

The only problem was he'd seen a Transformer Bed in a Bag set at Kmart. I'm not really a Bed in a Bag kinda person, at least not for kids' rooms, for several reasons. Not the least of which is how fast they "outgrow" their love for them. I wanted a room that could have an easily changeable theme without having to remodel every time, still be kid-friendly and look awesome at the same time. That's not such a tall order. Is it?

We started out by painting the top half of the wall in a navy blue - the color is Admirality from Lowes. We added a faux board and batten using lattice strips, crown molding and chair railing all done in a semi-gloss white. Much better already!

Even though he got to see the paint job beforehand, I didn't want him to know what theme he was getting until I was done. I figured it would have more of an impact that way. I also thought it might make the lack of that dreaded (for me, anyway) Transformers Bed in Bag a little easier on the both of us.

I think he was pleased with the results!

I kept the bedding simple, masculine and, I like to think, sophisticated. And I did it without any help from Pottery Barn! Red, blue, white and brown - it can work with any theme. So if he changes his mind it's not a complete do-over!

I made the duvet cover by sewing together two flat sheets from sheet sets I found at both Kmart and TJ Maxx. The red and white polka dot is from Kmart and the blue and white stripe is from TJ Maxx. I cut a third of the polka dot sheet off and reattached it to make the opening for the comforter. Then sewed the two together.

I used the pillow cases from the two sets as pillow shams. Why not?
I also made two envelope style pillow covers out of navy pillow cases and used that blue striped burlapy ribbon stuff - which is technically called upholstery webbing. I love that stuff so much I think I might actually look for excuses to use it.

This accent pillow I got from Kmart matches the Canon Red Dot Floral Comforter Set. When I got it, it had a section of red and white floral fabric where the blue stripe fabric is now. I took the pillow apart, which was more of a pain than I anticipated because there's no pillow insert inside just stuffing, and added the panel of blue stripe fabric instead. I also added the red stripe webbing to the front. Sewed the whole thing back together and re-stuffed. Labor intensive but well worth the effort especially since I'm not a talented enough seamstress to have figured out how to make this pillow all on my own.

He already had lots of Star Wars stuff to decorate with so we just added a few accent pieces.

These lamps we got from Home Dept for $39.99 each. The have these beautiful shades that I just added a bit of ribbon to on top and bottom. They plug in, too, so no wiring is required!

I didn't want to pay an arm and a leg for 11 x 14 frames. I wanted the cheap ones but I wanted them in white. Turns out they don't make cheap white ones, at least not that I could find, so I just got the black ones from Walmart for $5 each and spray painted them. I put a blue textured paper, that I got from Hobby Lobby, into each frame. I cut Star Wars silhouettes using my Silhouette machine and navy vinyl and mounted those onto white pages from my acrylic paint pad. This paper gave the vinyl a nice texture as though it had been painted on instead. Using double sided tape, I affixed the silhouettes to the blue paper inside the frame. They look so nice you can hardly tell they aren't matted. By the way, my Star Wars silhouettes are actually a font that I downloaded from da font.com.

My poor baby finally has curtains!

This little lamp I got from Walmart for $4 forever ago. I am so glad I saved it. I removed the original bell shade and painted the natural pine a true red. The drum shade is from Target. I added his monogram by cutting out the letters with my Silhouette machine and then using it as a stencil. I also added some of the trim that I used for the lamps above his bed.

An image of Boba Fett that I found via Google. I had it matted and then framed in a shadowbox. I didn't realize this until recently but you can totally frame a picture in a shadowbox for a nice chunky frame with just a few easy tweaks. I love the way that looks!

And the rest is mostly stuff he already had.

I couldn't resist this nutcracker from Hobby Lobby. I wanted Boba Fett but they were already sold out by the time I saw these.

This poster, the Science of Star Wars, came with a gift he got for his birthday and I just put it in a picture frame.

A 3-D Star Wars book he got for Christmas last year.

The bubble gum machine he already had but I just had to put red, white and blue gumballs in there. I know. I need help.

Moon in My Room which he already had. And loves. Perfect for a space themed room. Of course, he will only operate it on every phase but full for fear of attracting werewolves.

When he was little, my brother used to have a giant Millennium Falcon that would light up hanging from his ceiling. I can't imagine what something like that would cost these days so I just went with this planetary night light from Lowes. $9.99.....

....And as far as he's concerned, it's out of this world!



As always, if you ever have any questions (or comments) about any of my projects, please feel free to email me or leave me a comment. I'll be sure to reply!

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Star Wars Birthday Party

I really didn't intend to take so long to post this. Hopefully you're still interested. Maybe.

When I posted pictures of that epic failure of a cake last week my husband saw it on my blog and said it looked like a giant marshmallow. Hmmm. Instead of trying to turn it into Jabba the Hut (which I thought about) or tossing it into the pond (which I did) I should have just sprayed some yellow and brown food coloring on that bad boy, pretended it was always supposed to be an awesome roasted marshmallow cake and called it a day.

Luckily tragedy was avoided by creating a cake of epic proportions capable of distracting from questions like, 'what happened to that r2d2 cake you were going to make?'.

I found the greatest (and easiest) recipe for a chocolate cake. Ever. Which you can find right here. It's moist, super chocolately and absolutely ridiculous which I believe is inarguably the way to go with birthday cake. Plus, you need simple ingredients - everything is pictured above - and no one will know you used a mix. Trust me. And try not to eat the batter. It will be hard. Just keep telling yourself there are raw eggs in there. Maybe that'll work for you.

I also learned a really neat trick while baking this cake. I was using a 10" round, 3" deep cake pan which "requires" a heating core. I hate those things. Don't you? Anyway, I didn't want to use one. Partly because I'm stubborn and partly because I didn't want a gigantic hole in the center of my cake. I needed to put a larger dowel in the center of the cake to attach r2's head to, well I didn't actually get that far, but keep in mind this is all happening while I'm still delusional enough to think I can pull off this amazing cake. Anyway, the large hole down the center paired with that dowel down the center would've been a bit like toilet paper rolling around on a toilet paper holder. And no comments on how it actually turned out looking like a large roll of toilet paper either. I'm trying to tell you about a trick I learned.

Anyway, it turns out, all you have to do is insert one of those rose nails (the metal ones) in the bottom of your pan. It conducts the heat without leaving a gapping hole. How about that! I played it safe and baked the cake per the mix directions referring to the bunt pan cooking times then lowered my temp to 325° and finished baking in 5 - 10 min incriments. Checking it each time.

Find cool pics of Star Wars images and make up clever names for Star Wars inspired drinks. Create in photoshop making about 8" to 8.5" wide but be careful not to extend your images all the way to the top or bottom unless you've left a small border around it because it will get slightly cut off during printing. I did two labels per page. Have them printed on 12 point paper - glossy card stock. I had mine printed at Office Max for around $5. Remove soda labels and apply your labels with a spray adhesive. Anything else and they will fall off. Not cool.

Make your own invites. Find high res (by searching Google images) Star Wars backgrounds and add text. It's that simple. Remember, when having it printed make sure to size it like 4.75 x 6.75 or something like that so that none of your coolness gets cut off during printing. Save it as a .pdf and take it to your printers. Again, I used the 12 point or glossy card stock. Don't know how to prep for printing? Save it as a .jpeg image and let the folks at your printer's do the rest.

Make your own Thank You notes. They're cuter and more personal. Create a blank document in photoshop (or similar program). I wanted a 4 x 6 note so my measurements were something like 3.75 x 5.75. If you change the largest number and keep a check in the constraint proportions box, it will automatically change both number and that's the safest way to go. I added my photo on top of another red square so it would have a nice border and added text. I put his name in the bottom corner but left some space on the left for him to write his friend's name. If your child is like mine and doesn't like to write more than he has to but you're like me and you're bound and determined that he will, this is a good compromise. I didn't make him write an entire note but I did want him to write something. This way we were both happy. These I just took down to Wal-Mart and printed them myself from the self-serve printer. They were ready in 8 mins and cost me about two bucks.

We rented a waterslide so naturally I thought they should also have some pool noodles to beat each other silly with.

I made some "lightsaber" pool noodles using Chrome duct tape, black duct tape and red duct tape. An easy trick to cut duct tape into shapes, especially circles, is to put it on wax paper (the shiny side) and then make the cut. BUT make sure you put the tape on the wax paper and immediately make the cut otherwise the tape will be permanently stuck to the paper which completely defeats the purpose.

I cut pool noodles in half so one noodle equals two lightsabers. I wrapped the bottoms of the noodles in Chrome, cut black strips for the handle and cut circles for the button.

I can't lie and say I'm not disappointed that some of the things (ok, the cake!) didn't turn out exactly as I planned but something tells me that he couldn't possible have cared any less. And that's the point, really, isn't it.

It was a good party. Vader agrees.

Here are some free printables for you. If you want to use them, click on the pic to open it up then download. If you'd like more info on how I used them see my previous post, Confessions of a Chronic DIYer.

Enjoy & May the Force Be With You,



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