Red beans, split peas, mushrooms, rice, potatoes, walnuts and parsley may make the ingredients for a tasty soup, but they make an even better float. Volunteers tirelessly decorated the elaborate award-winning Endor and Naboo floats in the Star Wars Spectacular presentation for the 2007 Rose Parade by using thousands of flowers, vegetables, bark, legumes, nuts and spices.

"We cut flowers and leaves, ground stuff up, painted the floats, applied materials onto the floats, arranged flowers, put flowers into the vials and more," Regional Support Administrator for the Pacific Region of Fan Force Rachel Williams says. "We basically did everything except actually build the float -- which was made of a steel frame then covered with foam."

Williams helped coordinate the volunteers from the Rebel Legion and Fan Force who came to the Festival Artists warehouse in Azusa, CA for the crafty event. Employees from Lucasfilm and Industrial Light & Magic, as well as members of the 501st Legion, Rebel Legion, NorCal and SoCal Fan Forces showed up to decorate.

"We also had people from the SoCal Browncoats, Chicago Browncoats, and USS Angeles (the local Star Trek group) signing up to help," Williams adds. "I think I put in the most hours out of all of the Star Wars volunteers, which racked up to about 62 hours. We signed up people for Dec. 9, 10, 16, 17, 29, 30, and that killer 3 am to 10 am shift on Dec. 31. With the exception of the 9th, I was there every day and even came up on Dec. 26 and 27. So that makes...eight days? Not nearly as long as the people who work there, though! They've been working on the floats for months, and they didn't even go home or sleep the last few days."

During that time, volunteers found themselves surrounded in numerous materials to use in decorating the two floats representing Naboo and Endor. For the Naboo float, volunteers discovered a variety of materials that would be used for the elegant Theed Palace presentation. Eucalyptus leaves and silver leaf covered the rooftops, while the palace walls were adorned with oats with split peas providing the green details. The steps and floors featured ground walnuts, and the banisters consisted of various colors of millet birdseed. The winding vines were first covered with parsley. Purple irises also could be seen decorating the entire float, whereas the base of the float was covered in different colored, individually placed, roses. Mushrooms and moss were used to cover parts of the pea-covered areas. The banners on the Naboo float were covered in flower petals, ground up flowers, silver leaf, ground up rice and other seeds.

"We did a lot of detailing on that float," Williams says. "The balconies and their spindles were individually placed kidney beans and small red beans. Around the roof tops were pumpkin seeds. The back balconies had more, using red, black, and white small beans. The statues were even covered in cinnamon and several other colorful spices."