Some of my greatest memories of being a young mom are taking my three little ones to Drive-in Date night. If it weren’t for the drive-in I would have NEVER been able to go the movies without my kids running up and down the isles, stealing everyone’s popcorn and sneaking sips of their sodas when they weren’t looking. I remember that we had a Mazda 626 which happened to have a section in the backseat that folded down so you could put skis in the truck and they could overflow into the back seat through this little door. My kid’s loved this. It was like their personal VIP clubhouse at the movies. They would set up sleeping bags in the trunk and climb back and forth from the back seat to the trunk (it is wrong I put my kids in the trunk at the drive in lol). Anyway, it was always a fun time. It seems like Drive-Ins have gone exstinct for the most part, I miss the social element that they add to going to the movies, so I tried to bring it back by hosting my own “Back-yard Movie Night”.
     There are a lot of fun directions you can do. For a smaller party, say a birthday you have the flexibility to be more detailed. I had a great suggestion from a FB friend (if you haven’t added me as a friend yet, I’d love to have you). She said their little boys made cars out of cardboard boxes and sat in them for the movie. I LOVED that idea. I decided to host a party for my entire neighborhood. It was an open invitation so I had to keep it simple. I started with invitations.
Zurcher’s has a great selection of really cute invitations with popcorn and tickets. I decided to do a flyer since I had around 75 to hand out. Here is an example of one that I did. I ended up trimming each of the corners to look like a tag. Then I punched a hole at the top and threaded a rubber-band through so I could hang it on doors. I also attached a fun ribbon to the top.

      Next, I needed to gather up equipment. You don’t need much. Just a projector, speakers, a lap-top and bed-sheet. We have a projector in our theater room but I didn’t want to unmount it, so I borrowed my Husband’s from his office. I just used stereo speakers I had from home. If you are unable to borrow the equipment you can google “projector rentals” in your home town. There are tons of places that rent them.
     Now, for the fun part: Decorations. Zurcher’s is a great resourse. They have awesome table-clothes, napkins, and cardboard signs. I wanted to add a personal touch so I created my own 4 ft. sign right from my very own computer, and so can you. First open the Microsoft Paint program that comes standard with most computers. Next click open, then add whatever clip art or picture you have saved. I usually create the sign in photoshop and just save it as a jpeg, so I will just open that image in Paint. Next click File and go to page set up. There should be a section for scaling. At this point you can select the size of your sign by selecting how many pages you want your sign to fit. For example: If you click 5X5 (which I did for my sign) It will print 25 sheets, so your sign will be really big. Don’t let the number of pages scare you! You really aren’t using that much ink. First of all most of it is white space. Second you can select economy print on your printer preferences and it uses let ink (keep in mind it will also loose a little bit of quality). I kept mine with the average ink. After you are done selecting how many pages you want your sign to fit, don’t forget to select weather your project is landscape or portrait. When you are finished simply print.  Once your pages are printed you just have to trim the bottom and left margin. Leave the right margin so you can overlap and glue all of the pages together. Here is an example of the sign I did. (check back Monday and you can see all of the pics from my party this weekend.

     I Also made smaller signs of popcorn, hot-dogs, cola, and a photo reel. I trimmed around those so they were just the image themselves. I also purchased plastic tape (like crime scene tape) and used tall hanging plant holders (or garden stakes that you can purchase at the dollar-store) to rope off sections in the yard. Like the entrance to the ticket counter for instance. I purchased a silly plastic vest at Zurchers for my kid’s to wear at the ticket counter. However, my 13 year old daughter had fashion ideas all of her own about a sweet little “she-tux”.  Tune in for pics of that lol.
      Next, is the consession stand. My two boys will be working the consession stand so I made them T-shirts with our “McKay Matinee” logo. The food was actually pretty simple.  Snacks for the party will be reletively inexpensive and easy to do in bulk. I am planning on serving nachos, hotdogs, popcorn, coke, and theater candy. Sam’s was a great source. I was able to purchase hotdog wrappers and popcorn bags for around $5 each (there were 500 per box so I will have plenty for a future party). I also purchased Nacho trays. They were a little more, around $20, but once again, they will be great to use for future parties as well.  While I have an old fashioned popcorn maker, I decided to use it more for decoration and to hold the popcorn rather than use it to make the popcorn. I ended up just buying HUGE bags for around $5 at my local grocery store.
     The theater candy was a tougher decision. Typically the larger boxes are around $1. I wanted to get the larger size because I was planning on having families. This is where it could get expensive. While the hotdogs including the bun only ended up being 18 cents a piece. A dollar per box of candy could get expensive. I decided that it was an expense that I wanted to incur because I really felt that it added a fun POP. I ended up purchasing 75 boxes on sale for 88 cents. Each family will get a ticket for one box when they come to the ticket counter. After I am sure on how many people are attending I will hand out the rest. If you don’t want to use theater candy you could also make cupcakes that are topped with a couple milkduds or dots. It would be cute to make a fun cupcake pick to stick in the top that has that brand’s logo. I also had a cute suggestion from another FB friend. She said that her friend made cupcakes in white and red striped cupcake papers. Then she topped them with marshmellow dip to look like popcorn. That sounds really cute!   I also had several suggestions to do bulk candy in large jars.
      The night of the party should be pretty fun. I told all of the families to bring blankets, pillows, or chairs. I also decided to have an after-party for the older kids so they could watch a fun action flick and play outdoor video games. It will be a late night . . . but I think it will be a ton of fun.
      I found some great free clipart on the web so I am including a few just for you. Right click on the image and save. I’m also inclucing the names of the fonts that I used. I think I got them from a free font site called Fontastic. If you can’t find them there, just google them. The ones I used are called Showtime, Ritz FLFC, lokicola, and Rightbank FLFIf you have any questions let me know.