2016 Academy Awards Party

It's the most wonderful time of the year....

Yep!  Oscars season has just wrapped up and we celebrated in style again.  Our 17th Annual Academy Awards party was in full effect last night and we had such a wonderful time with family and friends.  Some old traditions and new traditions came to be and I'll walk you through our party here.  

I love handing out Oscars and this year was no exception!  In years past, I made chocolate Oscars, but I just wanted to do something a little different this year.  So, when I came upon an Oscar cookie cutter, I couldn't believe it!  I ordered it and baked the day it came in the mail!  

To decorate the Oscars, I went with a gold, red and white theme and changed up the designs on each of them.  Using the color flow technique made for a messy kitchen, but lovely cookies.  These were our parting gift to our guests.  

Packaged in small gift bags and wrapped in coordinating ribbons, they looked the part!

The house was decorated with flowers in popcorn boxes...

...and so many Oscars posters and gear.  

It's become a tradition to make a banner of all of the best picture nominees and place it across the fireplace.  It's the focal point when you enter the house and it draws attention to the last award of the night.  Who will it BE?!

If you watched the 2015 Oscars, you saw that the Lego song, "Everything Is Awesome" was nominated.  During the musical performance, they handed out Lego Oscars.  No, we didn't get one of those, but Danny found a website that provided the instructions to make one.  He ordered each of the individual pieces and created it.  Voila!  Lego Oscar has joined the tradition!

 As our guests arrived, they received a name tag of a nominated actor or actress.  If their actor won the Oscar, they received....

 ...a bag of popcorn and some candy.   Aside from the ballot, it kept things interesting throughout the night.  Our guests had a little more at stake!

Some more Academy Awards posters...

....and past Awards programs.

This year, the Academy was selling a notebook that had words of wisdom from some past Academy Awards winners already printed within it.  As our night went on, we had our guests sign our book, and we'll do this each year until it's full.  I think it'll be a wonderful treasure for us to look back and read about the sweet and ridiculous things our friends wrote year after year.

I always have a good time hiding the paparazzi throughout the house.  ;)  They show up in the most unexpected places.

Now, for the food....  For the first part of the night, the dining room was the location of our appetizers.

"Shroom"  (Room)

Danish

"The 100 Year Old Man Who Crawled out a Fruit Tray and Disappeared"

"Brie" with "Straight Outta Compote"

"Theeb"

"Bacon Cranston"

The kitchen table hosted the snacky, sweets.  Here are "Malt Damons."

Almond "Joy(s)"

"Bridge Mix of Spies"

"Sic-Oreos"

And now for the main course:

"The Revenachos"

 "Mad Mex - Fiery Road"

"Tortilla [Tom] Hardy Taco Shells"

"Ex-Guacina"

"Fajita Shades of Grey"

"Anamorice-a"

"The Bean Short"

"Cate Blanchurros" (purchased from local Fiesta Cancun Restaurant)

"Sour Creed" and "Son of Saulsa"

Finally, the desserts:

"Inside-OATmeal Bars"

"Seven-layer Stalone"

"Lemonardo Dicaprios"

"Bar Wars - The Fudge Awakens"

"S'mores-sha Ronan"

 Don't forget the Oscar cookies!!!

And the winners of the ballot are:

Here's Erin.  Her sister Kristi took home first place and her husband Steve took home 2nd place.  She's thrilled.   ;)

Thank you to everyone who helped to make the night a success and for everyone who shared the evening with us.  We had a great time!