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Throwing the perfect party isn’t easy, but worth it. After all, what does any 10 year old girl want? Truth: A pony. Okay, okay, but what does she really want though? Something she could actually have, really easily. Answer: The most epic birthday party with all of her friends and the coolest decorations, activities, and food. Oh, and not to mention a good, old-fashioned Miley Cyrus dance party. What more could she want?
When she returns to school on Monday and all of her friends think she’s the coolest because her mom understands the importance of a good birthday party, that feeling is irreplaceable. And she’ll remember it forever.
So what do you need to throw the most amazing movie theater-themed birthday party?
Lights.
Camera.
Action.
The Perfect Movie for the Perfect Party
We wanted to use a projector to show the movie, and the original plan was to be outdoors. Inclement weather scooted us inside, though, and we managed to get ‘er done with a white sheet on the wall. The hostess laid down several blankets on the floor, basically covering every inch of carpet in the room where the movie was displayed. This helped reduce spills on the carpet. Genius, am I right? We played the Incredibles 2, which everyone loved. However, with 20 or so 8-10 year olds, it did not hold their attention long. Dance party ensues.
Theater Style Concessions anyone would Love
There’s nothing better than theater concessions for dinner. Pretzels, nachos, hot dogs, and sweets. So that’s exactly what we did!
We had a snack of popcorn available for the kids as well, popped with an actual popcorn popper so the smell filled the area.
Beautiful Party Decor
Supply List:
- Balloons: I love this brand. That is an excellent price for the nice quality of the balloons.
- A Balloon Arch Decoration Strip
- Plastic Popcorn Containers. These aren’t the exact ones that I had, but these will work even better because they all match.
- White and Gold Party Fans
- Glossy Red Wrapping Paper
The rest is just paper, a paper cutting machine like a cricut, and some old crafting stuff!
A Balloon Garland
I had so much fun decorating this party, and it was all very simple stuff! The balloon garland is still my pride and joy, even though only pictures of it exist now. I found the perfect little gadget to making balloon garlands the simplest task of all time, while still being quite time consuming: this balloon garland tape. You can’t beat it! It helps so much. (You can find a special buying tip at the bottom of this post in the “Pro-Tip” section.)
The popcorn box is one of my favorite parts of this party. It was an old box laying in my garage that I shined up a bit. I spray painted it red (which took many coats, because spray paint does not provide as much coverage as previously thought) and put strips of white duct tape on it to make it seem like a red and white popcorn box! I then took sparkly yellow paper and cut out the word “POPCORN” using the cricut machine and taped them on the side.
Wall Decorations
All of the cutouts on the walls and the hanging banners I made myself using the cricut machine. I don’t even have one actually, it’s my mom’s, but oh man is that thing useful. She has one of the old cricuts that use cartridges, and I always use the same font for all of my banners: the Tall Ball font from Plantin Schoolbook. They are very simple to make and other than the cost of the paper (which can be found on sale at Hobby Lobby every two weeks), pretty cheap and very on-theme.
The Red Carpet
The red carpet walk of fame is just red shiny wrapping paper from Hobby Lobby and gold paper cut out into stars using a cricut machine. I hand-drew the names on them, and it didn’t take as long as everyone thought it did. It was easy to google a Broadway-themed font and copied them from looking at the font online! I tried to make the birthday girl’s star look different so she would feel special. The girls loved finding their names on the red carpet, and some of them took their star home.
Rope Poles
These adorable rope poles are homemade and are one of the things I was gushing over all week leading up to the party. They are cheap and very easy to make: the base of them are aluminum pie pans, the poles are wooden dowells I bought from Walmart, and the tops are styrofoam balls. It was all spray painted this beautiful gold color. For the ropes, I just cut strips of red paper and then stapled them into this chain. Easy peasy!
Now Playing Sign
The now playing sign was probably the easiest part of decoration for the party, and it was so cute. I just bought a foam board from Walmart, added white cutout letters I made using the cricut, and used an old strand of Christmas lights to poke through the back of the foam board. So easy, so cute! (You can see a picture of this towards the top of the post.
All the On-Theme Fondant
The cake and/or cupcakes and cookies have to be on theme as well. The host of the party bought this cake from someone local who makes these beautiful cakes. I was a smitten kitten with it!
A Happy Birthday Girl
As the birthday girl was dancing the night away with her 20 closest compadres, I sat back with the other party organizers and let out a gentle sigh of relief. We had been planning this day for a long time, and everything seemed to go smoothly. Check out what Lindsey (aka Mom to Kaylynn) had to say:
My oldest daughter Kaylynn turned 10 years old today! So hard to believe she is 10. This past weekend with the help of Tanea we accomplished a surprise birthday party. Her theme was Hollywood Movie!!! Tanea made a price sheet of all the things she was willing to do for the party. Kind of like an ala cart menu! It was great.
The pricing chart gave me the oppurtunity to pick and choose what I would want a daughter’s party. How she decorated the party was amazing! My friends at the party even said… “I would have never thought to do that” Tanea treated my daughter’s party as if she was planning her family members party! It was very visable that she cared and took her time in planning the event. The party wouldn’t have so smooth without her help! At one point in the party I saw her buttering soft pretzels to throw in the oven and that was definetly not something she had to do! Kaylynn was surprised. Everyone loved it! I would recommend Tanea’s help to anyone!!
A VERY HAPPY MOTHER
Lindsey Hutson
If you’re interested in working with me, and would like to discuss me planning your upcoming shindig, soiree, party, or get-together, click here. I would be thrilled to hear from you!
And last but not least, those tips I promised about throwing movie-theater themed parties.
Pro-Tips:
1. Make sure, if using a projector to show a movie that you get your tech figured out before the party. We ran into some issues with the tech we tried using to show the movie, but it was unavoidable due to trying to keep the party a surprise for our birthday girl. If you have the luxury of setting up ahead of time, try this out a day or two before the party.
2. I found a lot of the cute decorations you see above, including the balloon garland tape I was talking about earlier, on Wish. The balloon garland I linked to on Amazon was $8.00, but I found it on Wish for $0.50! I also found the tissue paper garlands, table cloths, and balloon stickers on Wish. That saved me some serious cash. Just make sure you allow enough time for all of the products to arrive if you use Wish. It’s definitely not two day shipping if you know what I mean.
As always, thanks for tagging along!
Happy Hosting!
I’m obsessed with the popcorn balloons! What a genius idea.
Thank you! I garnered some inspiration from Pinterest but it turned out better than I could have imagined. So easy to make, too!
Wow, this was cool. Keep writing this kind of texts, you will get a lot of people to this blog if you continue writing this. I will be coming back this site more often. thx
Did the rope poles stand up on their own?
They did for most of the night. The dance party that ensued destroyed them. They aren’t super hardy, but they stood up fine before they were tested by the kiddos!