For the games I was able to print out Oscar Bingo and Oscar Ballots from the Academy Awards Website.
I also made the Moet Silver Screen Punch. I chose not to spend the money on Moet and substituted my favorite cheap champagne instead. Everyone liked the punch so I recommend subbing out if you don't want to spend $40 on a bottle of champagne.
Everyone had a great time playing Bingo and waiting to see if their nominees won. My cousin Danna won in Bingo (as well as best dressed.)
I won the ballot game, because most of my nominees (some were lucky guesses) won! 11 out of 24 aren't bad odds!
I had also printed out these really fun Oscar Fashion Scorecards.
I think most people's favorite was the "No you Din-en't!" category (Worst Dressed). We had alot of fun with the "Picante (Hot, Hot, Hot!) category as well. As always there were some gorgeous gowns and jewelry.
I bought some of my decorations from a card and party store, but I wanted to be crafty with my decor too. I don't get crafty often enough in my adult life so it was nice to "create" some cute things to accent my party. I felt like my Oscar party would not be complete without some actual Oscars, so I made these:
Theresa won "most lovable/fun"
Everyone wins at my party!
I also made these cute stars:
And these "Sparkly Votives"
I used the cupcake toppers from this pin:
And the wine charms from this site:
I used these tags for my "swag bags."
I found directions to make my envelope napkins here:
For the food (my favorite part) I made Copycat Applebee’s Artichoke and Spinach Dip. I haven't eaten at Applebee's, but when I read the ingredients I figured this would be a yummy dip and I love anything that involves chips and dip.
For the main dish I wanted something easy, yet delicious so I pulled out my old trusty crockpot and made these Slow Cooked Pulled Pork Sandwiches:
These were so good and so easy! the hardest part for me was shredding the pork. I used one bottle of Stubb's Spicy and one bottle of Stubb's Sweet Heat. I was really pleased and all my guests seemed to like it too.
For dessert I made Inside-out Chocolate Filled Strawberries:
I definitely liked these better than chocolate covered strawberries. The author of the blog post makes a great point that when they are covered most of the chocolate falls off after your first bite. With these you aren't wasting the precious chocolate and they are cleaner to eat.
I also made these "Red Carpet" cookie balls. (I re-named them for the Oscars.) I had two different recipes to choose from. One was the cookie balls and one was for cake balls and because the cake balls required me to make cake and was a little more labor intensive I chose the easy road:
I had my doubts about this recipe. I thought taking the easy road was going to leave me with a crappy dessert. If you have a food processor, this recipe becomes even easier.
These balls looked kind of gross but I forged ahead.
The hardest part was coating them in chocolate.
You can not believe my shock when everyone went on and on about how good these were. My family members asked me to make these for every holiday from here on out. I guess easy roads do pay off sometimes!
We ended the night with "Dirty Shirleys" I recommend this drink because they are easy to make and taste very good. I did not use cherry vodka, I used plain old Absolut and everyone liked them.
The party was a great success. A few of my guests were really excited about The Oscars, while some could care less, they just wanted to come to my party. The games kept everyone engaged in the awards ceremony, the food kept everyone happy and the drinks just helped us have a good time. Even though my swag bags didn't have anything expensive in them, (movie candy, Cracker Jacks, funny magnets, pens, Marilyn Monroe and Breakfast at Tiffany's stationary and cute post-its) everyone seemed pleasantly surprised to receive a goody bag. I never really thought about it, but it seems only kid parties supply goody bags. Well that is a shame! Adults like goody bags too!
I feel like I really out did myself this year, which was my goal. I can't wait to try to top this party next year!
My husband and fur baby were partied out.
