{oscar party supplies}

This is the first time in years that I haven't been home to host an Oscars viewing party.  I'm not even sure I'll be able to find a way to watch the awards ceremony in Paris which I realize is pretty ridiculous to be complaining about, but it's one of my favorite tv nights of the year!  You can check out last year's Oscar party we had at our house as well as an inspiration board here.  Since I can't gather my own party supplies for the event, I thought it would be fun to link to some of the perfect components to host your own party!

Printable Ballots:  This is an absolute must for Oscars viewing (I generally score horribly on these).  I love this booklet type one from Studio DIY, but if you are looking for a little less time intensive printing then opt for this one-pager from Almost Makes Perfect.

Printable Bingo:  How About Orange's blog has been creating free printable bingo (as well as a matching ballot) forever and I love how much fun having a bingo card adds to watching the awards ceremony- plus it's a good activity for guests who don't really care as much about the show as others (ahem, my husband).

Festive Decor:  Obviously my first choice for Oscars party decor would be to go all out gold & silver with sequin tablcloths, adorable printables, and festive garland, but a little packet of gold confetti is really all you need.

Gourmet Popcorn:  Pick up a packet of these mini popcorn containers and fill with gourmet flavored popcorn like this or this.  Another option is setting up a DIY popcorn toppings bar like this one to put the work on your guests!

Fancy Mini Bites:  Tv viewing parties are never about sitting down to a full on meal, but your guests are going to need more than popcorn to get through the night.  I love to serve fancy mini bites- especially recipes that can be made before guests arrive like crostini or sliders.

Signature Cocktail:  No party of mine would complete without a special cocktail for the evening (I have really been wanting to make this one for a party)- bonus points if you whip a batch ahead of time so you aren't mixing cocktails all night long.

Lots of Champagne:  No explanation needed here.  This one is my favorites for under $15 a bottle!

{oscar viewing party snapshots}

{simple serve yourself bar set up}

This past Sunday we hosted our first ever Oscar Viewing party and it was a blast (see the inspiration board here). We did a little re-arranging of our living room furniture to make for optimal viewing for our 12 guests, set-up a simple serve yourself bar and served a trio of fancy tacos for dinner.  Some parties that we host allow me the time to really take a lot of great photos for the blog, but other times I get too caught up spending time with our guests that I forget to take photos so I just have these few snapshots from the evening:

 {we made two batches of make ahead cocktails using these guidelines and I placed out a few 

bottles of champagne along with a selection of liqueurs and bitters for people to play with}

 {oscar ballots I made myself and oscar bingo printed from here}

 {a selection of popcorn: one is the classic Garrett's popcorn Chicago mix, the other 

was brought by Heather and it is a chocolate, sea salt and chile flake mix}

   {I wanted to make some extra special and since it was the Oscars, 

caviar seemed like the best way to go!}

{oscars viewing party ballots}

For the past couple years, we have been printing ballots and corresponding bingo games for almost every award show.  Before I discovered free printable ballots, I would only really watch the Oscars award ceremony, but filling out your picks for the winners makes watching every award show fun and enjoyable.  This year we are hosting a little get together to watch the Oscars (see the inspiration board here) and I decided that since I didn't have a chance to send out real invites that taking it up a notch with the ballots would be substitute for some snail mail.  Inspired by this image on Pinterest, I created some fun booklet style ballots for each of our guests.  I dropped them in the mail earlier this week so that everyone could get a head start with their picks since we are planning on making the competition interesting!

If anyone is interested in printing ballots like my own, feel free to email me and I will send you the files.  Otherwise, I highly recommend this ballot and bingo from How About Orange.