A's 15th Star Gazing Birthday Party

A's Galaxy Cake

We had a great time celebrating miss A turning 15 with a star gazing party at our house.  Only bummer was that it turned out to be a cloudy evening with a little rain so we weren't able to take our telescopes outside and look at the sky.  The kids didn't seem to mind too much and I think everyone had a great time.

David and A made a vanilla cake with a mirror glaze.  It's hard to capture it in a photo but you can see your reflection in the glaze.

We added 15 star candles!

Make a wish...

Since we had our party later in the evening we ordered pizza for everyone.  We also served veggies/hummus, fruit, chips with salsa/guacamole, and fun themed treats.

Milky Way minis

Starburst

Star Crunch

Star candy...

We are loving the 3D printer that David got for Christmas.  We have printed so many neat things on thingiverse.  If you have a 3D printer you need to check them out!  For the party we printed out stars and hung them throughout the house for decorations.  Then we handed them out to guests as party favors.  They were a hit!

 3D printed star decorations

 a closer view...

Sky and Telescope has an amazing free download for a Star Wheel.  You can check them out here and print your own.  These will be fun to have for our next star gazing adventure.

Star Wheel

Handmade Charlotte has a super fun candy constellation game printable that I used.  You can download your own and check out her post here.  Instead of using canning jar rings, I used small glass bowls that worked great.  I also didn't hole punch all of the stars in all the constellations because my Gobstopper candies were a bit big.  

 To play - tilt and move the bowl around until you get all the candies settled into the stars with holes.

 Aries

 Cassiopeia

Lulu the Baker has a free printable constellation guide that we used to make marshmallow constellations (we also used Handmade Charlotte's candy constellation templates for this as well).   Check it out and download your free guide here.

To make these, you just need toothpicks, marshmallows and your constellation guides.

 Aries constellation

 Libra constellation

If you are looking for a fun birthday theme this works for a wide variety of ages - including teens!  Hope you had a great weekend.