by Dinah Wulf
Written By Amy Greene of Pounds4Pennies
Amy Greene of Pounds4Pennies lives in Texas with her husband and blended family of three kids, two who are 10 and a 2 year old. Amy has been a frugal shopper for years and enjoys throwing a party on a budget. She enjoys couponing, cooking and crafts.
This year my daughter turned 10. Yep she is double digits now. I can’t believe it. Where did the time go? I remember she was born a little over two weeks after 9/11. I was thinking of what kind of world was I bringing her into. Things have not changed as drastically as I thought they might.
MOVIE PARTY IDEAS
She picked her party theme “A Night at the Movies.” She wanted this to be a red carpet event. So I did my best to give her a fabulous Movie Party event on an extreme budget.
The Menu
We are talking eight 9-10 year old girls, so I wanted to keep the menu simple. My first thought is what do you get at the movies? Hotdogs are served at the movies. Then I thought nachos, my all-time favorite and hers too. I purchased some Velveeta cheese for this event, one of the most expensive things for the party. I had plenty of salsa from and I bought some chips. Then of course the most obvious thing at the movies is popcorn. I didn’t want to spend my time popping a million bags of popcorn in the microwave. I knew they could eat a ton from the last party she had. So I borrowed a hot air popper from a friend. I popped five batches of popcorn. Yes that is a lot of popcorn. They serve candy at the movies, so I got all sorts of candy and chocolate chips to mix in the popcorn.
Menu:
- Hot Dogs & Buns
- Nachos
- Popcorn
- Candy
- Chocolate Chips
- Popcorn Cake
By the way the plain chocolate chips were a big hit. Who knew? Hint hint if you are throwing a party soon, chocolate chips are cheaper than candy.
And of course, since it is a birthday party you will need a cake. I didn’t feel like buying one from the store. So I decided to make one instead. It is a Popcorn cake. Click the link to see how to make this fabulous cake… super cute. I even made a Popcorn Cake of these for a friend who had a Movie Party.
She enjoyed putting the “popcorn” on the cake.
Decorations
I purchased a generic silver star set from the party store last year. I choose this since it would go with a lot of party themes and not be a one-time purchase. We just recycled these and hung them around the house. I found a cheap red carpet at the party store we place outside our door. I colored large yellow stars with sidewalk chalk in front of the house to make it look like the Hollywood walk of Fame. (If I had a little more time I was going to write the girls name who were attending the party in the stars).
I made her a banner for her birthday. Her name is at the end, I do not want to share it to protect her identity. She loved it.
I found the popcorn buckets at Target for $1.00 each. And the paper ones at hobby lobby for 8 for $2.49. I couldn’t find my coupon or it would have been cheaper. They made their popcorn buckets and filled them with candy and popcorn and everything. I didn’t care what they ate as long as they had a great time.
For the table I used a red table cloth. I covered my cake dish with black tissue paper for the stand where the popcorn gift bags were. I also covered a bowl with black tissue paper to place the Popcorn cake on. I thought it looked fabulous for a movie party idea.
Entertainment
My husband borrowed the projector from his work and we hooked it up outside and put a large white sheet on the back of the house. He used a staple gun to tack it up. It looked great. I spread several blankets outside on the lawn where they could lay down eat popcorn and watch the movie. (not too much movie watching happened) They even had a popcorn fight and I didn’t care since all of this was outside. I just picked up the blankets shook them off and I was done with clean up… super easy.
Everyone had a great time! This was fun for me too, since most of the party took place outside I didn’t have a lot to clean up inside.
