Party Theme: SPACE INVADERS
Costume: Your favorite alien or outerspace explorer
Decorations: Lots of aluminum foil, shiny fabrics, science posters, black posters, paints (silver and neon), foam balls, branches, glow sticks, planetary models, and assorted alien masks and toys
Foods: Pop Rocks, jelly beans, wasabi-covered peas, colored chips, Easy cheese, and anything that is neon, odd-looking, or resembles space rations

See also our Pinterest Board: Space Invaders Party.

This party theme is not just a great idea for kids, it is also a blast for grown adults!

To start off, I told all my friends to come dressed as their favorite alien or outerspace explorer. The nice thing about this concept is that it is wide open for interpretation OR you can buy something if you aren’t that creative. For the alien aspect, most people wore something shiny or plastic and added masks or antenna to their heads. The outerspace explorers came dressed in rugged outdoorsy clothes, and their neutral pallette made the perfect contrast to the colorfulness of the aliens.

This food table was also very easy to do, because it involves snacky foods that are colorful, odd-shaped, or unexpected. The candies were the simplest part: Pop Rocks (of course!), brightly colored jelly beans, and Sour Patch kids. The savory / salty snacks included wasabi-coated peas, Easy Cheese on crackers, and different colored chips – best found at organic food stores. I also recommend having fun with different kinds of containers to hold the food in, but always make sure the containers are food-safe first!

I will be the first to admit that my favorite part of throwing a party is the decorations, and I go all out. The way to make the biggest impact is to consider your flat surfaces first, i.e. your walls, table-tops, furniture, etc. Whatever you do, always consider what it will take to get the covering on the object, will it hold, and can you remove it without damaging the object.

In the living room, I bought some beautiful science posters online of brilliantly colored nebulas, which I then framed in inexpensive black ready-made frames and hung in a group on the living room wall. For the furniture, I had silver and blue metallic fabric to drape over the largest pieces. The most outrageous part, though, is the aluminum foil. I bought a HUGE roll of it from Sam’s and wrapped my coffee table, side tables, kitchen table, and kitchen cabinet doors in it. That was probably the biggest pain in the butt, but it ended up looking really cool and was the cheapest decoration of the whole party! I also found some cheap fleece blankets with a planet and star design on them, and used those to cover the couch and some chairs.

For the bathroom, I had my largest art project. I took black poster board, cut a bunch of differently sized foam balls in half, and painted them with neon paint. NOTE: you can not spray paint foam, as it will melt it; you have to use acrylic paint instead and brush it on. I took the leftover paint and splattered the posterboard lightly to give the effect of scattered stars and nebulas. I then glued these bright half-spheres to the black posterboard in different places and attached a bunch of glow-in-the-dark stars around them. To finish it off, I glued on a foam spaceship I found at a teacher’s supply store and nailed them all to my bathroom walls. I replaced the regular light bulbs with black light bulbs, and voila! The bathroom was now a trip out into space! Unfortunately, this would not come out on film, so you will have to take my word for it.

To add more three-dimensional decorations, I used glow sticks in plastic cups, had a big bowl of neon Easter eggs with glow sticks in them (my bowl of alien eggs!), and assorted space models that I bought on sale from toy stores and teacher’s supply stores. I also took regular tree branches, spray-painted them silver, and arranged them in vases with clear or pastel marbles and acrylic gems.

The overall theme I was going for was based on colors (neon, metallic, or pastel), textures (shiny or slick surfaces), and glowing lights. I think it came together rather well, and people certainly enjoyed themselves. If you throw your own Space Invaders party, we’d love to hear about it on Facebook!