Oscar Viewing Party

My husband is gone and I needed a goal... an activity to plan for and look forward to so I decided to host an Academy Awards Viewing Party!  I found a cute evite online and sent it out to a number of local friends and started planning my menu, decor, etc. right away!  It was a fun diversion to the snow we got here last week, not to mention the lingering cough my daughter has.  :)  It was a LOT of fun and the people who attended had a great time!  Here are some pics from the event and all of my 'over the top' fun decorations!

My little helper - she liked the cream cheese from the frosting!

one heck of a yummy Chocolate Cake!

What a wreath!  I used cardboard and craft paints - masking tape to get the straight lines but otherwise, freehanded the lettering...  ended up hot-gluing it onto a wreath form.  The wreath and ribbon were both from the Dollar Store

The Dollar Store was definitely my 'fave place' this last week.  I found so many great items to decorate with!  The popcorn buckets were fantastic and so fitting for the evening.  I also found shiny metallic star decorations:

Hard to see but the stars are hanging from the light fixtures - I also tied them to some of our table lamps in our front room.  I also cut out stars from cardboard boxes in our recycle bin and painted them gold using basic craft paints.  I stuck them onto picture frames, etc. using double-stick tape.  

Would you believe I moved all our furniture around for the party too?  Yep - 12 weeks prego and moving a TON of furniture around!  :)  It worked out great though - plenty of seating for great viewing and everyone was comfortable!

Another fun 'crafty' item I did was create pom poms out of tissue paper!  This is a Martha project as shown in this link: Pom Pom How To's

I found an image of the Oscar online and printed it out to put in the aqua frames below:

red carnations, plates, napkins and silver (used my Wedding China and the nice silver... why NOT?)

Dollar Store finds!  These popcorn 'buckets' were 2 for $1.... put rice in the bottom to keep them weighted and attached printed 'labels' for each utensil.  I made tent cards using this printed movie ticket image to show what each food item was and to label the favor bags too (see end of post)

Some of the spread...

...this was all the savory items

This was where the sweets were!

Menu:

Fruit

Spinach in Phyllo Triangles (thanks Mary!)

Spinach & Feta Hummus

Guacamole, Chips & Salsa

Crackers and three types of Cheeses

Caesar Salad with Chicken

Bruschetta

Crudite with Green Onion Basil Dip

Peanut Butter Popcorn

Chocolate Brownies with Pecans and Girl Scout Cookies

Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing
Movie Theater Candy:  Runts, Sugar Babies, Gobstoppers, Sweet Tarts & Peanut M&M's

A few games - Oscar Bingo, The official Oscar Ballots

and Movie Trivia (which we didn't even end up looking at)

I had prizes for winners of the three games but ended up giving them out to people doing the bingo (which I found here: Oscar Bingo 2011)

Such fun!  I found three different DVD's (tried to get Academy Award winning pictures) and tied them up in gold ribbon with some fun plastic sunglasses

Here is my friend Mary's little girl Isla wearing the sunglasses Mary won:

Each guest was treated to a little favor as they left (some took home leftovers too):

Found these great paper sacks at the Dollar Store too!  I put in movie style candy and a bag of microwave popcorn....

A little something extra:

Peanut Butter Popcorn Recipe!

(this is a favorite of mine growing up - always a treat to have my Mom make it for us!)

1.  Pop three batches of popcorn with an air popper - set aside

2.  In a saucepan over medium high heat, stir 1/2 C. Sugar and 1/2 C. of Karo Syrup or Honey and bring to a boil.  (My Mom says she likes the flavor of the honey - I used the Karo since I didn't have much honey and was happy with the result!)

3.  Remove from heat and stir in 1 t. vanilla and 1/2 C. peanut butter (creamy or crunchy - you pick!)

4.  Pour over popcorn to coat

Eat and prepare to be ADDICTED!!!!!