Creative Oscars Party Ideas + Film Reel Cupcakes

I am a member of the World Market Trendsetter Tribe.  This Oscars Party is brought to you by World Market as part of their Movie Lovers Sweepstakes. As always, all opinions are 100% my own.  #MovieLoversSweeps

Don't you just love watching the Academy Awards?  Whether you watch it to critique the fashion and style on the red carpet, to catch a glimpse of your favorite actor or actress, or to see if your favorite movie wins, there is something for everyone!

I've been busy creating some great ways for you to enjoy the Oscars this year with family and/or friends by throwing an Oscars viewing party!  I'll be sharing tons of fun food, drink, invitation, ballot, and decorating ideas for you party to be amazing and worthy of the red carpet!

To get ready for my Oscar party, I went shopping where I always go to prep for a party- World Market!  World Market so many great dishes and party essentials that are perfect for entertaining, as well as lots of gourmet food and drinks from around the world.  

The first thing you need when prepping for an Oscars viewing party are invitations.  I created these free printable Oscar party invitations for you to download, print, and pass out to your party guests!  

I created them to look like tickets, and in this post I show you how to make a glittery gold envelope to put them in.

Once the invitations are passed out, it's time to go shopping for food and some party dishes!  I wanted this party to look great, but be easy to put together. 

One of my favorite finds at World Market was this retro popcorn maker, which looks amazing, and is just perfect for the Academy Awards since the movies and popcorn go hand in hand.  

World Market also sells some cute paper popcorn boxes that perfectly match the popcorn maker…. gotta' love that! 

I wanted to serve cupcakes to match the theme, so I decided to go with some gold film reel cupcakes made from licorice wheels.   

The wheels look like film reels, especially when you unroll the end just a bit.  I originally saw the idea here, but I swithced them up a bit.  Here's how I made them: 

Gold Film Reel Cupcakes:

Supplies:

• EDIBLE gold spray paint (from the craft store)
• Store bought or home-made cupcakes
• Licorice wheels (from World Market) 

To give the edible film reels some sparkle and shine, spray them with edible gold paint.  Spray the wheels and top of the cupcakes with the gold paint just like you would with regular spray paint.  You might need a couple coats of paint on the licorice wheels.

Place one "film reel" on the top of each cupcake.  I just love the way they turned out!!

Another fun treat to serve are these tuxedo chocolate covered almonds.  They are so impressive to serve, but I promise they aren't as hard as they look to make!  

Simply start with some World Market chocolate covered almonds, and follow the directions in my tutorial to make the cutest little almonds, all dressed up in a suit and tie.  You're basically just painting on a white triangle for the shirt, a tiny black bow tie, and a couple little dots for buttons with chocolate bark or melts and a toothpick.

I found these small tuxedo boxes that were perfect for holding treats for guests!

While watching the Oscars you have to have a little bubbly, so I picked up some of my favorite orange mango passion fruit Italian soda and mixed it with ginger ale for a delicious drink that looked amazing in the Madison champagne flutes.  These glasses look amazing, and would you believe that they only cost $1.99 each?  You can bet that I stocked up!

To decorate make my food table, I spray painted some regular tickets from the party store (originally green) a pretty gold color, and attached them to the front of my cake plate and serving platters with tape.  I also used some metallic gold shreds on a platter to hold the drinks.  Both of these decorations added a lot to the table without taking a lot of time and effort or costing a lot of money.

When your guests arrive for your Oscar party, you can have them fill out this free printable 2014 Oscar ballot and make their picks for the top categories of the Oscars.  

They can do it for fun, or you can always have a prize for the winner at the end of the Academy Awards!  A fun prize would be an assortment of some of World Market's delicious and unique chocolate bars.  Their strawberry and champagne and sea salt dark chocolate bars are soooo good!  The blood orange milk chocolate bar is next on my list to try.

Are you a movie lover too?  World Market is giving away FREE movies for a year ($1600 Fandango gift card), plus a $1,000 World Market gift card!  Be sure to enter World Market's Movie Lovers Sweepstakes for a chance to win the grand prize package.  There are also three awesome runner up prizes which include a $500 Fandango gift card and a $500 World Market gift card!  

You can earn bonus entries for liking World Market's Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr brand pages for more chances to win.  Good luck!

If you liked this project, please follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Bloglovin', and Instagram.

xo, Laura

Sharing here:  Show and Tell

2014 Printable Oscar Ballot

It's Oscars Week here on Make Life Lovely, and today I'm sharing a 2014 Printable Oscar Ballot that you can use to play along during the Academy Awards and see how close you were to picking the winners!

You can play along and vote for your favorites just for fun, or you could have a prize at the end for the big winner.

If you're throwing a party or get together you don't want to miss the free printable Oscars invitations that I shared with you yesterday, plus the directions on how to make a gorgeous sparkly gold glitter envelope to put it in!

Click here to download the 2014 Printable Oscar Ballot

(2 per page)

Enjoy!  If you missed any of the Oscars fun this week, here are some of the highlights!

I teamed up with World Market to create a fun Oscars Viewing Party!  

One of my favorite ideas are these gold film reel cupcakes that are so quick and easy to put together.  When you use store-bought cupcakes, you can have these guys ready in only 5 minutes!

Chocolate covered almonds look and taste even better when they're all dressed up for the party in tiny chocolate tuxedos!  These little guys are so addicting…

If you liked this project, please follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Bloglovin', and Instagram.

xo, Laura

Sharing here:  Show and Tell

Tuxedo Chocolate Covered Almonds

Oscars week continues on the blog this week, and I am so excited to share these cute treats that I came up with that are perfect for the occasion!  They were pretty easy and fun to make, and I fooled my husband and kids that I had spent hours making them… tuxedo chocolate covered almonds!

My husband bought me a HUGE container of chocolate covered almonds for Valentine's Day, so I decided to get creative with them and make these tasty treats.

Chocolate covered almonds wearing little tuxedos would be great to serve at an Oscar's party, a Hollywood party, prom, a wedding, or any black tie affair.  I mean, who can resist chocolate in a tux?

I made a small handful of these, and then mixed them in with the rest of the regular chocolate covered almonds.  Unless you have a ton of free time on your hands, I think this is the best option for serving these little cuties.

Tuxedo Chocolate Covered Almonds:

• Chocolate covered almonds
• White chocolate melts or bark
• Dark chocolate melts or bark
• Toothpick

First, melt a few of the white chocolate melts or bark according to the directions.  

Use a toothpick to add the white chocolate to the almond and create a V shape coming down from the top.  Repeat with as many almonds as you'd like to use.  

Melt the dark chocolate, and then use another toothpick to make a tiny bow tie shape, along with two or three buttons.  I found that it was easiest to make the sides of the bow first, and then connect them in the middle with a small dot.

I think I'm in love.  These little guys are just so easy and adorable, don't you think?

Here's a quick recap in case you missed the rest of my Oscars posts this week.  So far I've shared free printable Oscars party invitations and printable Oscars ballots.  

Make sure to visit tomorrow to see an Oscars party I put together using amazing finds from one of my favorite stores on the planet- World Market!

xo, Laura

Sharing here:  Show and Tell

Free Printable Oscar Party Invitations + DIY Gold Glitter Envelopes

Most award shows are hit and miss for me, but I LOVE watching the Academy Awards.  From analyzing the dresses, makeup, and hair hits and misses on the red carpet, to rating how funny the host is that year, to guessing who and what movies will win, I love it all!

If you love it all, too, then you're in luck!!  This week on Make Life Lovely it's all about the Academy Awards.  I've got tons in store for you this week, including free printable Oscar party invitations, fabulous food ideas, free printable ballots, easy Oscar party decoration ideas, and a complete Oscar party table spread using some amazing finds from World Market.  I can barely contain my excitement!

I designed some lovely free printable ticket invitations for you to download, print, and give!  Whether you enjoy a casual get together with friends and family, or love throwing a lavish party for the occasion, these invitations are perfect!  There are four invitations per page.  I print mine at the office supply store so I don't use up all my black printer ink!

These invitations are part of my Oscar Party I created with World Market.

Download Free Printable Oscar Invitations

(These invitations are for personal use only, and are available for free for all followers of Make Life Lovely.)

The only way to make these invitations even better would be to add some gold glitter, so I made some easy gold glitter envelopes that take these invitations over the top!  If you want to add a little glitz and glam to your invitations and party, you have got to try making these!  

And did I mention that each envelope literally will take you one minute to make?  I used an awesome tool called the Envelope Punch Board, made by We R Memory Keepers.  I saw it in action at CHA last month, and just fell in love with it.  It's a simple yet powerful tool that helps you easily and quickly make envelopes.  Here's how…

DIY Gold Glitter Envelopes:

• Gold glitter paper (I found mine at Michaels)
• We R Memory Keepers Envelope Punch Board
• Paper cutter or scissors and ruler
• Adhesive

1.  Measure your card size, and look on the punch board to see what size to cut your paper.  Cut your paper to the correct size.  My Oscar invitations are 4" x 5," so I cut my paper to a 7.5" x 7.5" square.

2.  Look where it says "score line" next to the paper size on the punch board.  

Line up the left edge of paper to the score line measurement.  Punch down to create a notch in your paper, and use the scoring tool to score the paper (which will make it easy to fold).

3.  Turn the paper counterclockwise by 90 degrees, and line up the score line to the blue score guide.  Punch and score.  Repeat on all sides.  

Round all of the corners using the reverse punch, which is the back side of the punch that you already used.  Fold and glue.

Isn't it beautiful?  

Wouldn't you love getting one of these beauties in the mail?  Your first envelope will take a couple minutes to make, but after that you can make an envelope in one minute, which is very cool.

You can also download these free printable Oscar ballots for your get-together or party as well!  Just check off your top picks on the ballot before the show, and see how many you got right.  You can also turn it into a contest and have an award for the winner if you'd like.

These tuxedo chocolate covered almonds go perfectly with the the Oscar theme, as do these gold film reel cupcakes that use store-bought cupcakes and are SO easy to put together!

You can see all my party ideas for the Oscars viewing party I created for World Market to get more ideas for your party, too!  Happy planning!

If you liked this project, please follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Bloglovin', and Instagram.

xo, Laura

Disclaimer:  I was given an Envelope Punch Board.  As always, all opinions are 100% mine!

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