This past weekend, we celebrated our sweet little girl's 6th birthday. She specifically asked for a movie party which got the wheels turning in this party mom's head. We live in Houston and there's always a really good chance that in January, we can party outdoors. This is how I like to do things since our yard is way more accommodating than our house. I decided we would do an outdoor movie party and things just fell in to place after that. Thank goodness for unseasonable seasons!
Sadly, I was so caught up in the craziness of hosting and accommodating a mass of 5 & 6 year-olds on a sugar high, that I didn't realize my camera was on the wrong setting. I got zilch in the awesome photo department, but the memories will last regardless.
We had a great area of benches and covered pallets set up for the kids to lounge around with pillows and blankets while tables and chairs were seated directly behind for the grownups to enjoy the movie as well.
A little photo area was set up for the cuties to pose with 'staches in front of a vintage frame. They were so cute trying to cram all together and pose. Priceless.
We ate popcorn, pizza, and a ton of sugar under the stars while watching Despicable Me.
For dessert, we served chocolate chip buttercream cupcakes made to look like small buckets of popcorn. The wrappers were made by Oh My Gluestick as were the invitations and favor bag tags, & candy buffet labels that looked like little movie tickets. Chocolate toffee popcorn served as the favors in plastic popcorn containers found in the dollar spot at Target. I stumbled across an unopened box of 500 popcorn bags at a thrift store. That was a very good day!
The birthday cake was a fabulous creation by a local bakery Celebrations and Sweet Creations who gave me exactly what I asked for and turned my vision in to a delicious chocolate mousse filled cake!
The essentials:
Outdoor movie parties call for 3 essentials in these parts (aside from good concessions). They are blankets, bug spray, and lighting. You have to be careful how much light you put out when using a projector as you don't want to compromise the picture. However, you also don't want to fall on your face on your way to get more grub. My solution was glow sticks in mason jars. I found the jars for super cheap at our local HEB back in October. They have since been sitting in the garage waiting for their chance to shine.
Favorite finds:
My favorite accents are those I stumbled upon at thrift stores. I absolutely adore the wooden Napa Valley wine box that was used to hold the popcorn favor containers. Price $8. A little iron stand caught my eye for $2 that was perfect to hold the bug spray. The "concessions" sign probably takes the cake for me. I found an old cabinet door last year and spray painted it black with the intention of using it at our Halloween party. I never got around to doing what I wanted, so I hand painted the word CONCESSIONS on it and will now hang it over our pantry door in the kitchen since my 3 year old announced to my daughter, "Concessions means SNACKS!". Priceless. And last, the blanket bucket was a curbside freebie. Yes. Someone. Was. Throwing. That. Out. Perish the thought and happy day for me!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The highlights of my popcorn adventure:
I have never made popcorn from kernels before. That is, I've only made microwavable popcorn and managed to burn it nearly every time. It's a mystery to me how I can whip up goodies from scratch without a single problem, yet I can not operate my microwave to make popcorn. So, I googled how to do it* (see below for instructions), made a sample batch the weekend prior, and was prepared to go in full swing. I made 3 batches of caramel popcorn, 6 batches of chocolate toffee popcorn, and my sweet hubby ended up handling the 2 batches of butter popcorn so I could attend to early arrivals.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*How I made fabulous, easy, and delicious popcorn via stove top:
Step 1:
Coat bottom of stock pot in thin layer of olive oil or Orville Redenbacher's Butter Flavor "Popping & Topping". That stuff is fab! You not only can pop your corn in it, but you can top it off after it's made. It tastes just like the stuff they use at the movie theatre. Yum! I also added a good bit of kosher salt on top of the oil, though I ended up salting at the end too.
Step2:
Pour kernels on top of oil and let set a minute to coat. I like to shake the bottom. Just pour enough corn to cover the bottom and don't overcrowd.
Step 3:
PUT A LID ON IT!
Step 4:
Turn on your burner. I have a gas stove and set mine on medium high. Within minutes you're pop-pop-popping your way to deliciousness. Once you hear things start to slow down, turn off the burner and remove.
Step 5:
Here's where it gets fun. Since I made a few sample batches the weekend before, I had time to practice to see what worked best.
Butter Popcorn:
I tried real butter and the "Popping & Topping" stuff. P&T was delish, so I stuck to that for the party and added in a good bit of kosher salt.
Salted Caramel Popcorn:
I bought two bags of the Kraft caramel meltable balls and made a ton of salted caramel corn. YUM! For this, I melted one bag of caramel, added in half a stick of butter, and 2 TBSP of water. Once melted, I shut burner off and added in popcorn. This caramel batch goes a long way! I coated two stock pots full of popcorn. Spread caramel corn on baking sheet and give a dose of kosher salt. Preheat oven to 300 and bake for 20 minutes, turning at the 10 minute mark. This gives it the extra crunch it needs and makes it heavenly.
Chocolate Toffee Popcorn:
Lay popcorn out on baking sheet. Preheat oven to 300. Take 1 cup of melted chocolate (I had some left over from the chocolate fountain though chocolate chips will work fine too) and drizzle over top. Stir around on sheet until nice and coated. Add kosher salt to taste and about a half a cup of heath toffee bits. Bake for 20 minutes, turning at the 10 minute mark.
