Have this party: popcorn bar and double feature

Princess Lasertron, who many of you know from her felt/button bouquets and who we’ve featured on Offbeat Mama several times, recently started a series of posts on her blog called “Have this party.” While she’s planning to feature lots of grown-up parties, this first one could totally work as an awesome kid’s slumber party. Take it away, Meg! -Ariel

We’re starting a new series of posts here at Princess Lasertron–each month we are hosting a different party with a new fun theme that you can recreate yourself! Each month we will share shopping lists, printables like invitations and decorations, diy projects, and lots of fun photos.

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Popcorn Bar and Double Feature!

In a nutshell

To buy

• Two movies downloaded from Netflix or Amazon (we chose funny movies that we didn’t mind if people talked over)
• Two or three varieties of popcorn (we had plain and homemade kettle corn, popped on the stovetop)
  
• 5 squirt bottles for toppings
  
• Lined paper bags for guests to fill up and take home
  
• 2 glass bottles of beverage for each guest
  
• A pretty twirly straw for each guest
  
• 2 bags chocolate chips
  
• 1 jar of Nutella
  
• 1 batch of soft chocolate chip cookies (we grabbed a box of our favorite vegan cookies from the bakery at Whole Foods)
  
• 1 bag of tiny twist pretzels
  
• 1 can or bag of your favorite nuts
  
• A few bags of your favorite movie theater candy
  
• A few pantry items to make toppings: Peanut butter, powdered sugar & milk, butter, sprinkles
  
• Ingredients for and juice cocktail
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To prepare

• Crumbled chocolate chip cookies
  
• Chocolate-covered pretzels (melt chocolate chips in a Pyrex measuring cup for one minute in the microwave, stir, and dip pretzels!)
  
• Melt butter
  
• Heat Nutella & peanut butter (to spreadable consistencies)
  
• Make icing by mixing a few splashes of milk with powdered sugar
  
• Make juice cocktail recipes

To create

• Cover bottles with invitation labels
  
• Fill empty bottles with sangria and cover with “party juice” labels!
  
• Print labels and fill each squirt bottle with a squirtable topping: Melted Nutella, hot peanut butter, melted chocolate chips, melted butter, and icing

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This month we created a fun and casual party for 10 close friends with fun drinks, silly movies, and a popcorn bar for under $75! We started by designing an invitation that could be dropped off on the doorsteps and desks of our guests.

Each invitation was a handmade label wrapped around a bottle of fun flavored soda that read “You’re Invited!” with room underneath to hand-write the details. You can print them on sticker paper and cut them out, or attach them with tape or clear contact paper.

You could put this label around a bottle of beer, or increase the size and fit it around a bottle of wine. You could even save empty bottles, fill them with stems of carnations, and deliver the invitations as little bouquets of flowers!

Another fun thing we did with printable labels was using them to create a custom bottled drink–party juice!

You need a glass bottle with a screw-top lid (Jones Soda bottles, for example) for each guest. Fill each empty bottle with water and put them, 3 or 4 at a time, in a deep pot of boiling water for five minutes, or until the water inside the bottles begins to boil. This cleans the bottles and makes the labels easy to slide off. Pull them out with a hot pad, use a knife to slip the label off, and let them dry completely.

Next, affix a label to each bottle with tape, clear contact paper, or just print the labels on sticker paper! You can print each label off in color or black and white.

…Just slap the label on, fill ’em up with your choice of beveages, and screw the lid back on tight! [Here are some ideas for drinks to make!] We put these together just before guests arrived so they would be fresh and cold.

Click on the thumbnails below to download the printable invitations and labels!