Create a great space theme birthday party with these space themed party invitations, decorations, food, games, costumes and prizes. Boys (and girls) of all ages will enjoy getting out of this world, even if it’s just for the afternoon.

Space Party Invitation Ideas

• Send your invitations in a ‘Top Secret’ envelope requesting your guest be a part of an inter-galactic rescue mission. Instead of writing the date, time and place of the party, change the wording to read Launch Date, Countdown (party starts), Mission Completed (party ends), Mission Command Centre (where it is), and RSVP to Mission Control.
• Turn a gladwrap tube into a space rocket, and roll your invitation up inside of that. For extra fun, fill the tube with star shaped glitter and a small astronaut toy.

Space Party Decorations

• Cover your walls and ceilings with black building paper or black polythene, and attach heaps of cardboard stars covered in tin foil. Use fishing nylon to hang computer CD’s from the ceiling as planets, and make UFO’s out of two plastic plates stuck together.
• Turn your house into a Mission Command Centre. Make an archway at your front gate with a sign that says Secure Area – Restricted Personnel Only, and have someone at the front gate issuing your guests with ID cards so they can get in. Ask your local appliance store for old fridge boxes, and paint them up to look like giant computers. Add bottle caps for knobs and buttons, and pieces of hose – just for effect! Scatter maps and planet posters all around the room.

Space Party Games and Activities

• Have a table with paper plates, crayons, scissors, glitter, glue and tape, and have every child make their own UFO when they arrive.
• Before the party, make a whole heap of planets by painting different sized balls in different colours. (You will need a whole solar system for each child.) You can go to lots of trouble, or simply paint them in different colours and write on them what planet it is meant to be! Give each child a planet, and tell them there is a whole universe hidden in the back yard. They each have to find a complete solar system to get their prize.You could use this same idea but turn the hunt into a ‘Space Mission’. Purchase a pile of plastic toys (people, aliens, animals), and hide them in the backyard. The children’s mission is to find them and bring them home. You could make it a joint mission, or give each child a photograph of the thing they are trying to rescue.
• Tape black polythene around the edge of a hoola hoop and give each child a Frisbee painted up like a UFO. Have a competition to see who can fly the spacecraft into the black hole.
• Divide your party guests into two teams and have a ‘Moon Rock Relay’. At one end of the garden have a pile of garden stones, and give each team a pair of BBQ tongs to use as their robot arm. When you say ‘Go’, one person from each team has to run down, pick up a stone using just their tongs, and carry it back to base. They then pass on the robot arm to the next person, and they do the same thing. The race continues until all the moon rocks have been collected, and the winners are the team with the most rocks at their space station.

For new twists on old favourites try:

• Musical Planets
• Pin the Tail on the Alien
• Pass the Parcel wrapped in ‘space foil’

Space Party Food

• Serve each child their food in their very own space tray. Simply cover the lid from a photocopy paper box with tinfoil, and decorate it up with knobs, buttons and lights for extra effect.
• Use melted chocolate to stick coloured pebbles around the outside of a mallowpuff. Easy-peasy UFOs.
• Make mini-pancake aliens by adding food colouring to the mix, and frying your pikelets in alien form. You don’t have to get too fussy, just drop a blob for the head and some stringy bits for weird arms and legs. If you like, you could decorate them with lollies, but the fact that they are weird colours might be alien enough.
• Mashed potato moon rocks are delicious, especially on a cold day. Simply make up a batch of mashed potato and add about ¾ cup of grated cheese, and 4 tablespoons of flour. Mould handfuls of the mixture into ‘rocks’, and bake them at 200*C for about 20 minutes.
• Make old fashioned scotch eggs and pass them off as alien eggs. Make up a sausage meat mixture with herbs and tomato sauce, then wrap a good layer around a hard boiled egg. Fry the alien egg in hot oil, or simply cook in the microwave for 2 minutes each.To really capture the alien theme, add a few drops of green food colouring to the sausage mixture. It won’t change the taste, but they will look great!
• For quick fix space food try mini Mars bars, Milky Ways, Starburst lollies or start shaped cookies.

Space Party Costumes

• For an easy astronaut costume make a pair of overalls out of bubble wrap, and paint them with silver spray paint. Don’t worry about sewing, simply staple the seams in place and cover the sharp bits with silver insulation tape. Make a rocket back pack by taping 2 soft drink bottles together, and sticking strips of red cellophane to the bottle neck. (Of course, you’ll want to paint these silver too!) Put strips of silver tape onto black gumboots to make your moonwalkers, add a space helmet and some safety glasses, and you’re ready for take off.
• An alien costume is a great way to stand out at a space party, and because no-one knows exactly what an alien looks like, you can be as weird and wonderful as you like. Make some great alien tentacles by stuffing stockings with newspaper, give yourself an extra set of hands by attaching rubber gloves to the end of your sleeves, or wear a mask on the back of your head for a double face look. The ideas are only limited by your imagination.

Space Party Prizes and Loot Bags

Instead of using traditional party loot bags, try:

• Turning an empty Pringles tin into a rocket ship by wrapping it in tinfoil, and adding fins and a cone. Rip red cellophane into strips to make the ‘blast off’ flames, and fill it with your party treats.
• Taping together two plastic plates and decorating them to make a glittering UFO. Cut a door in the top plate and fill it with space treats like mini Mars bars, Milky Ways and Starburst lollies.
• Making a ‘Mission Control File’ by decorating a cardboard filing envelope with space badges and ‘Top Secret’ stamps. Fill it with all sorts of activities and cool information about space. NASA has an awesome website with a whole section of ideas for kids, and plenty of great things to download. Visit www.nasa.gov and click on the ‘For Kids’ link.