I don’t throw parties very often but when I do I usually pull them off pretty well. I hadn’t had a birthday party since I turned 21 so I figured it was as good a time as any to put one on. Naturally, it had to be nerd-themed. The invite specified that costumes were required and I was really excited to see what my friends came up with.
Because so many amazing pictures were taken, I’m going to post the pictures of the prepping, food and costumes on the blog and I’ll put the rest of the pictures on the facebook page for Picture Friday. So be sure to check that out!
We spent a good 3 days prepping for the party. This included cooking, baking and decorating. My sister-in-law Troi did all of the baking. This was only her second time ever working with fondant and I was beyond impressed with how the Darth Vader cake she designed turned out.
She then had to spray it with a steamer to make it shiny. She’d never used the steamer before. Turns out it’s like a power washer so she had to stand about 3 feet back.
This was the end result. Feel free to tell her what an awesome job she did (especially for being a rookie!) in the comments.
She also baked Star Trek snickerdoodle cupcakes (my favorite). I was put in charge of the chocolate insignia toppers. I’m an ok artist but have never drawn with chocolate before. Some of them came out better than others.
In the end they looked pretty good.
The rest of the desserts included Star Wars cookies, chocolate hazelnut and french vanilla lightsabers, Star Wars lollipops (a perk of having your birthday near Valentine’s Day), Nerds candy (which myself and several other people thought was hilarious), and Lembas Bread (donuts wrapped in “mallorn leaves” NOT the Lembas Bread that I ridiculously attempted to make here).
All of the food we made was themed. I was going to use this perfect opportunity to film more Cooking with Hot Nerd Girl segments but we just didn’t have enough time so I’ll have to recreate them again sometime in the near future. Some of the recipes were from The Geeky Chef, some were from JustJENN, and the rest I just made up or came up with names for existing foods. All of the food labels have Marvel characters on them, and yes, I know that it’s weird to have Hulk on a food named after Yoda, but I liked the stickers and I couldn’t find them for any other franchise so I went with it.
The double-sided lightsabers were from JustJENN. I made both meat and veggie versions.
The other main dish was Hasperat, a spicy vegetarian Bajoran favorite. This one came from The Geeky Chef but I modified it quite a bit.
For sides we had Arc Reactors (my sis-in-laws AMAZING deviled eggs), Ewok Food (sort of like Chex mix), and Spicy Yoda Ears (edamame). The Ewok Food and Yoda Ears came from JustJENN but I modified them.
For dips we had Yoda Poop (guacamole), Sarlacc Pit Dip (onion dip), BRAAAAIINS (tapenade), and Grapok sauce (salsa).
The big hit of the night, however, was the Carbonite Jell-O. This came from JustJenn but if I had to do it over again I would have spiked the Jell-O. This was an adult party after all. I was just so crazy busy that it didn’t even cross my mind while I was making it. Next time!
I made three themed drinks. Klingon Blood Wine, Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster, and Ambrosia. Turns out that Ambrosia turns your whole mouth blue. Oops. The Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster was the most popular.
On to the costumes!
I think I had one too many Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters before the party started because while taking pictures I had a tendency to either molest or fake-fight my friends.
Sarah as The Silhouette from Watchmen.
Jason as a nerd with his real nerd credentials (chemistry). His t-shirt says “DNA is life, the rest is just matter.”
Troi and I built this Darth Vader costume from scratch. The best part? Her cape, which flows when she walks. My nephew got away with wearing just a Star Wars t-shirt. But barely.
Brian as Malcolm Reynolds. He took his browncoat off just for this fist fight.
Gene as a Sith Lord.
My brother has a tendency to deploy during all of my major milestones so I had this cardboard cutout of him made a couple of years ago. He’s dressed as a Vulcan.
Jeff as Sub-Zero.
Every time someone would ask Brett (eyepatch) if he was “so-and-so” he would nod and say “yes” – can you guess who he was? His friends came as illegal aliens (which was hilarious).
Vivian as Shadowcat. Remember this lovely lady cause she’s got a guest blog coming up.
Chelsea and Justin as Princess Leia and Han Solo. Chelsea’s R2D2 lunchbox had a little player in it that said “help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope!”
Karen and Hannah created their own cosplay characters. Karen even had little wiffle balls that she would throw at people. One of them hit me in the eye which was way funnier than it sounds 😉
Don as Donatello complete with nunchunks.
Nick and Meghan as Twi-tards. You may remember Meghan because she braved the midnight showing of Breaking Dawn, part 1 with me.
Brian as my noble Starfleet Captain.
Hayden as Venkman. My nephew was obsessed with all of his blinking lights and his ghost trap.
Matt and Julie as members of the Zoltan cult from Dude, Where’s My Car?
Star Wars Episode 7: The Return of Mama Jedi!
Matt as an ultimate Star Wars geek.
Christian as a TNG-era Starfleet Capatin.
Danielle as Batgirl using her Batphone to fight crime.
Jake as The Punisher.
The Empire and the Rebellion together at last.
And the winner of the “Friend Who Made The Biggest Effort To Get Here Award” goes to my friend Danny who took a private jet (!!!) from Northern California.
For that, he got a grope from yours truly.
See my nephew back there? Yeah, well, just after this picture was taken he stuck his lightsaber right between my legs. It was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen him do and I WISH I had a picture of it!
I know that this post is uber long but I still have sooo many awesome pictures so seriously, check out the facebook page on Friday where I’ll be posting all of my favorites.
Thanks to everyone who came!! And a HUGE MEGA SUPER DUPER thank you to my Mom and my sister-in-law, I could never have pulled this off without them. I wuv you.