Award Show Party Ideas

By Angela Sellari

I have always love watching award shows. It’s so fun to have a few girlfriends over to watch the Oscars or Grammys. An award show is an incredibly good excuse to throw a party, not that you ever really need an excuse to have friends over for good food and fun. Typically, I keep our gatherings pretty simple featuring some of our favorite snacks like Velveeta-Rotels famous Queso Dip and a always a fun dessert. I’ll share with you some of my favorite award show party ideas.

The red carpet event, before the show is probably more fun to watch than the award show itself. I like tying the red carpet theme into my party in different ways. The first way is to ask your friends to attend the party in their best award show attire. It’s a great time to wear that dress that you bought for your best friends wedding, that’s been sitting in the closet ever since getting dusty. I also like to create a glamorous red carpet look in my tablescape. Simply use a red table runner or a couple of red place mats to create a red carpet for your snacks.

Good Eats – Famous Queso Dip

A good party has to have good food, and one of my friend and family favorite’s is Famous Queso Dip made with Rotel and Velveeta. It couldn’t be any simpler to make, and is always such a crowd pleaser.

Here’s what you’ll need to make it:

1 can (10 oz each) Ro*Tel® Original Diced Tomatoes & Green Chilies, undrained
1 pkg (16 oz each) Velveeta® Pasteurized Prepared Cheese Product, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

Directions:
1. Combine undrained tomatoes and cheese in medium saucepan.
2. Cook over medium heat 5 minutes or until cheese is melted completely and mixture is blended, stirring frequently.
3. Serve warm as a dip with tortilla chips, crackers or cut-up fresh vegetables.

This recipe takes literally minutes to make. I have one of those mini slow cookers that I like to dump the ingredients into, and let it heat up while I prepare my other dishes. The recipe yields 2-1/2 cups or 20 servings (2 tablespoons each). Easy peasy!

Movie Theater Butter Popcorn Cupcakes

I can’t imagine going to the movies and not getting some delicious buttery popcorn, so popcorn is a must have when watching my favorite movies and actors win awards. Movie Theater Butter Popcorn Cupcakes are such a fun take on the movie theater favorite. Although a wee bit time consuming, they are surprisingly simple to make.

Prepare the popcorn. You’ll need one 10 ounce bag of miniature marshmallows per one dozen cupcakes. Cut each marshmallow in half with a knife, then using your fingers squish two halves back together at one end. This is a bit time consuming and is a great chance to get the kids involved by letting them squish the cut halves back together. You can work on this while your cupcakes are baking.

Whip up a batch of your favorite cupcakes and swirl on some buttercream or vanilla frosting. The swirl mound will give your cupcakes some height for your popcorn pile. I use my favorite buttercream icing recipe and swirl it on top, using a pastry bag and large decorator tip. Adding a little Wilton butter flavoring to your frosting will give it an unexpected surprise. Once the cupcakes are frosted, simply add the popcorn pieces to your cupcake working from the bottom up. The frosting will hold the marshmallow popcorn pieces into place.

To add a butter effect to your popcorn, add several drops of yellow food coloring to one cup of water. Use a clean (preferably unused) paint brush to gently brush a little butter onto each kernel.

I purchased red and white stripe scrapbooking paper from my local craft store, and cut it into strips to go around the bottom of each cupcake. The strips just need to be wide enough to cover the cupcake liner, and just tape the ends together in the back.

Swag Bags

It’s a long standing tradition for celebrities to receive swag bags for award shows, so I thought it would be fun to put some swag bags together for my party guests. You don’t have to go to a lot of expense or trouble to create swag bags. I used plain brown gift bags with handles, added on some glittery star shaped stickers, and ribbon. Some of my suggested goodies are movie star red lipstick, glittery nail polish, small tubes of perfumed lotion, and a chocolate treat.

Award show parties are a lot of fun, and I hope you’ve enjoyed some of my award show party ideas!