Outdoor Movie Night!

So many of my friends made a 'Summer Bucket List' for their family. On almost each one was an outdoor movie night. Naturally, after looking on Pinterest for some ideas, I totally fell in love. We could pull this off, and better yet, we could make it into the boys' birthday party theme! Win - win. 

Most of you know that I'm a crazy theme planner, so I took the movie thing and ran. I was originally going to use a template from Oh Happy Day, but had some printer troubles so we just went with regular write-in ones (in movie theme) from the party store. Easy peasy. Food was "theater" themed, with a hotdogs, hamburgers and a nacho bar. Right before the movie started we also put out popcorn and a candy bar. Obviously a hit! The balloons were pretty easy this year (hurray, no DIY balloon arch!), with one big character mylar and solid color balloons making little colums. I ended up blowing up the solid colored ones myself, and used the big mylar ones to hold them up. Again, can't get any easier than that! Usually I do balloons a day or two before, and they're still happy by party time. We borrowed a friends projector, hooked up our own sound system and used 2 vinyl shower curtain liners from Target (less that $3 each) taped together for the screen. I just used some twine to hang the screen between two trees and held in down with a rod taped to the bottom. I was really, really happy with the way our screen worked out. I was a little nervous that the picture quality wouldn't be great, but we were all pleasantly surprised, even with the two holes I accidently ripped in it with the ladder! Throw up some classic cafe lights and the whole look was gorgeous. 

{our screen and balloons}

{our 'get comfy' area. In addition to these blankies, I had different outdoor conversations sets and tables and chairs set around the yard. In front of the projector I also propped up a headboard and piled on a bunch of pretty pillows!}

{food area}

{concessions area}

{Twislers, M&M's, raisinets and gummy worms!}

{those paper candy boxes were $1 for a package of 5 from the party store and worked perfectly!}

{popcorn!}

{bad shot of our pretty lights in the dark, but oh, I loved it}

{It was so fun to watch the adults get into the movie too!}

To entertain the kids before the movie we had a "monster slime" sensory bucket and some outdoor play toys. Beyond that? I think they liked running around and playing with sticks the most! We started the movie about 40 minutes before the official sunset, and while it was still pretty bright, the kids all claimed they could see the movie, so we went with it. Not to mention I accidently stopped the movie so we had to restart 10 minutes in, ha! 

I was really surprised how easy this party was to pull off. I usually go a little crazy and over plan activities and such, and this was totally low key, kept the kids entertained and the adults actually got to chat instead of chasing a bunch of littles around! I think I've covered everything, but if you have a question about anything we did, leave it in the comments!