Hosting A Backyard Theater Party

We love watching movies as a family curled up on the couch with big bowls of popcorn. The drive-in-theater is a special treat, I will always remember the night we went with my friends family. All of us kid sat in the back of their grandparents truck on a blow-up matrice eating cupcakes (it was my friends birthday) and pizza. Or the time we went to see Prince Caspian with my grandmother, we made a bed in the back of our mini-van and ate way too much popcorn. 

We would go way more often than we normally do, but not all the movies they show we want to see. Bummer right? So we decided to make our own outdoor theater- no screaming kids, no obnoxious teens talking through the movie and no snoring *looking at Mr. Cottage* and we only show what we want to watch. Score! 

 Mr. & Mrs. Cottage bought Brianna and I an ANDYER mini projector for our birthday (if you missed that party you have to check it out!)  because we have been wanting to do this FOREVER! Unfortionetly it called for rain on the day of the party so we couldn't set it up outside, but we got to play with it on the living room wall. I have to say it's a great little projector. Super easy to set up, and connects a bunch of ways so you can play your movie. We watched Casablanca (that movie has an AMAZING sound track and looks awesome that big) on the wall in the living room. 

After looking at Pinterest *WARNING WARNING* I decided we needed a sign (doesn't everyone?) to announce what we are showing. So I borrowed the base to one of the cabinets that we took out during the Kitchen Remodel that Mr. Cottage was going to trash *Seriously sometimes he has no imagination!*

After cleaning it up a bit (it was in the trash pile for a couple weeks) I hit it with a couple coats of chalkboard spray paint *That stuff is so much fun!*. I sprayed down the sides with regular black spray paint that we had left over from another project let it dry and it was ready for chalk.

We set up a table with these fun movie camera lights, giant lanterns we picked up at Ross a few years ago to give people a bit of light to grab a snack.

If you haven't guessed it by now, we have quite a collection of baskets (kind of a must with the orchard), we lined one with wax paper and filled it with popcorn and a scoop for people to grab some and discourage the use of fingers. We filled a mix match collection of salt shakers with seasonings for the popcorn and taped tags beneath each. We used another basket to stair step them and add a splash of color.

 We covered the table with a black table cloth we picked up at dollar tree. Which really popped the black on the salt shakers. PS. Download our labels for free!

We made these delicious Molasses Cookies (recipe coming soon) for a hint of fall, which is very appropriate for the end of summer. We mimicked the popcorn on the other side of the table and filled a basket lined with waxed paper with these delicious cookies.

 For drinks, we served ice water and sweet tea (this is the south after all!) in our pioneer woman twin drink dispensers and these fun milk bottle glasses.

We used the clothes line *shhh! Don't tell Mrs. Cottage!* and clothes pinned a white sheet on to it to make a screen.

We strung out door lights over the screen to give it an old movie theater feel, and ensure everyone gets to their seat safely before the movie starts.

We decided to do mismatched seating and skip the hay bales, and simply spread blankets on the ground with these fun reclining pillows garden benches.

The butterfly benches are from Kirkland's *Love that store so much!* and Home Goods. They are such a cute addition and I love the splash of color the blue one adds.

And Lights. Roll film!

Have you ever done a backyard theater? What do you think of our set up?