Mary Poppins DIY Movie Viewing Party

Sometimes, on a Tuesday, you just need a little something special to happen! I surprised our littles mid-week with a Mary Poppins Movie Party! They couldn't have been more excited!

There is an absolute WEALTH of information available on Pinterest if you happen to be planning for just such an occasion! I also used my Silhouette SD to great advantage. There are many pre-made shapes that work perfectly with the Mary Poppins theme. In addition, I have made my Poppins Party Pinboard available on Pinterest so you can see the ideas that inspired me, and perhaps try a few of these ideas with your friends and family.

Ok, let's get into the details!

Setting the Stage:

I used this Carousel Horse Hexi-box shape as my centerpiece for the table. I cut it from card stock using my Silhouette Portrait, and then used a dry adhesive and glue pen to assemble it; it went together quite easily. There is also a tutorial on how to assemble it if these things tend to frustrate you. The kids absolutely wanted to play with it from the moment they saw it!

I wanted a backdrop of sorts for the table, but didn't want to do anything overwhelming (read time-consuming). So I hunted up some Mary Poppins printables. I simply printed them and adhered them to scrapbook paper to frame them up a bit. All of these were free, and I am including my own printable of Jane and Michael's advertisement for a nanny. If you would like to print your own you can find the Nanny Want Ad here to download, the Lucky printable, the Keep Calm printable, and the Spoonful of Sugar printable, here.

The Food:

I wanted all the food to be themed in one way or another to the movie. And I also wanted a solid variety of sweet, savory and salty. So we started with Kite Sandwiches. These were simple. Little Chef, ironically, loves to cook, but is not an adventurous eater. So these are simple ham and cheese with a little veggie cream cheese for good measure. I cut the crusts off a sandwich and trimmed each half into diamonds. I then used sliced cheese to cut out the crosses on the top of the sandwiches. (I just laid it on top.) Finally, I used some frilly 4-inch toothpicks to create the tails for the kites.

You can also see here the chocolate coins which were our Tuppence, and our Rum Punch (which we made without the rum for the kiddos!). For the punch I just mixed orange juice, pineapple juice and some La Croix Coconut sparkling water in a pitcher. The flamingo straw toppers were again from the Silhouette design shop. We don't have much juice here in the cottage, so this punch was a real treat for the littles! Also, the version with the coconut rum was a real treat for the adults!! Rum punch, delicious!

We added to the sweets with Raspberry Ice (store bought sorbet). If you really want to make some granita from scratch, I found a recipe for you. It looks pretty simple to make, but time intensive. And a little bit of time saving sounded great to me on a weeknight! I passed on the homemade raspberry ice.

And then it was time to move on to the salty snacks!

My kids adore goldfish crackers, but I was having a hard time making them fit into this Mary Poppins theme. And then I saw these umbrella party favors and I knew I had my solution! Here is a link to how to make them. Instead of a regular handle I wanted the classic Mary Poppins parrot head. So I found a .png image on line and imported it into the silhouette, traced it and cut it out. Voila! A Poppins umbrella full of goldfish! My littles loved them! (And so did I!)

We also had these adorable cream cheese and black olive penguins! Of all the food we made for this party, I loved these the most. They were a little bit of prep work, but nothing overwhelming. And the effect was well worth the effort!  I guarantee I will be making them again this Christmas! You only need cream cheese (we used the veggie kind), black olives, carrots and 4-inch toothpicks to create them. You can find the full tutorial here. I used the same frilly toothpicks as I did for the kite sandwiches. The effect was exactly as I hoped! And these are incredibly delicious little snacks! The toddlers were not as thrilled with them, but the adults were definitely pleased.

And because no movie party is complete without popcorn, I made these themed popcorn boxes! I used the Let's Go Fly A Kite Tile and the popcorn box shape with my Silhouette Portrait. These, surprisingly, took the longest time to assemble. The Fly A Kite tile has a LOT of intricate pieces cut from several different colors of card stock. I love the overall effect, but I'm not sure how many of these I could do. I'm glad I was only working on three.

A word about popcorn here (because I can); I am a huge fan of popcorn made on the stove. None of that chemical infused microwave popcorn for this family! It's so simple and much less expensive too. Plus, our family prefers the taste and smell to the microwave variety.

And there it is: the recipe for your very own DIY Mary Poppins movie viewing party. Of course, you could do the same thing for a Saving Mr. Banks viewing party as well.

Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!