DIY ASTRONAUT PARTY
Last week, we celebrated my little guy’s FIRST birthday by throwing him an Astronaut party.
From the time I found out he was going to be a boy, I knew I wanted him to have a space themed party for his first birthday. (I started a big first birthday tradition with my first baby…. so I obviously have to keep it going through the last, right?)
There are so many great space-themed ideas and tutorials all over the internet and pinterest, and being the procrastinator that I am, I started all my DIY’s just a few days before his party.
Almost all of the decorations I made, I found for free using recycled cardboard from LOWES, moving boxes from our move last year, and various items around the house! The only cost ended up being the snacks and food for the party.
Even if you’re not looking for birthday ideas, these are great free crafts to entertain the kids with inside during cold winter days, or hot summer months… you can make almost everything here without spending a dime 
Here is the link that I used to make the Cardboard Rocket Ship.
I called my local Lowe’s to make sure they had a giant refrigerator box available. The guy set a couple aside for me and stuck them in the lumber pick up section so all I had to do was drive up, throw in the boxes and leave. I never even had to unbuckle, unstrap, unseatbelt a single child to go hunt down a giant refrigerator box.
win win. win win win.
The silver is just kitchen foil stuck on with spray adhesive I miraculously found in my garage a few days prior, and then lined with duct tape. I wanted to spray the top red, but ran out of time…. and steam….
I wasn’t crazy about the wings I gave my rocket ship. I actually forgot about them until an hour before his party, so I just quickly cut some cardboard, made some thick slits into the rocket ship and stuck them right in. I think I probably would have made a different design for them, plus they kept getting in the way, so I ended up taking them out later during the party.
I made a little “baby” door at the bottom of the rocket ship that can tie up through a little notch in the cardboard
on one side I added felt and brought out all my felt pieces I had cut out years ago for a failed quiet book.
Next on the list for the astronaut birthday party were the Rocket Boosters.
These ended up being my most favorite part of the whole party. Most DIY Rocket Boosters are for older kids, and call for 2 liter soda bottles… but I wanted to make them mini for ONE year olds. I spray painted regular-sized soda bottles, or you could use water bottles, hot glued them to scraps of cardboard, found some rope and simply stapled them together to make arm straps. I used felt for the flames and hot glued them into the bottle openings.
bam.
Rocket Boosters!
and of course an Astronaut Cardboard Cutout
This was another favorite project. I googled astronaut images, found one I liked, and free handed it onto a piece of cardboard.
A little trick I have found to be useful in creating larger scaled drawings, is to make a grid on the original printout and a grid on whatever you’re drawing it onto (so in my case on the cardboard) and draw the picture grid by grid.
I had to do two coats of paint to fully cover the cardboard. Invest in a good box-cutter/exacto knife. It will make cutting everything out so, so easy. Mine was starting to get dull by this project and my hand was killing me!
Moon Pies, Pop Rocks, Sun Chips, Starbursts… the Space Themed treats are endless!
My cupcakes ended up as disasters… not sure how you can mess up cupcakes… but the cupcake toppers I found online are HERE for a free download
We had a bunch of 1-ish year olds, plus siblings, and had such a fantastic time! Thank goodness for our bounce house that caged the older siblings for the majority of the time. One of the best purchases we’ve ever made!
I’m thinking I may just have to do this theme again when he’s a bit older. There are so many cute ideas I have saved that I didn’t even get around to doing,
but we definitely had a “blast”…. and it was for sure “out of this world” 
