I’ll admit, I’m REALLY behind in my movie watching the majority of the time. But there’s nothing I love more than a good movie night but I like to kick it up a notch and create a whole theme to the evening. Crimes of Grindelwald was released in November and I finally saw it last week, but not before I threw a movie night for Fantastic Beasts leading up to it.

The good news is that I had seen the movie before, but I was watching with newbies and wanted to make it extra special. So, here are some tips on how I plan a movie night:

1. Make one thing that is represented/inspired in the movie. – In this case it was Queenie’s Apple Strudel. I’m actually pretty awesome in the kitchen and made this recipe up as I was cooking. It was also my first strudel ever!!! It turned out amazing and flaky. I used phylo dough sheets and filled the strudel with apples, cranberry’s, brown sugar and butter.

2. Have your favorite movie candy. – whether it goes along with the theme or not, you’ll never regret having it handy. For me, my favorite is licorice. Red Vines are actually my favorite and in this case I could get away with calling them licorice wands. 😉

3. Personal Touches – I’ve always believed that it’s all in the details. I picked up some lemon drops for Dumbledore of course! Potterhead here. I knew he was going to be making an appearance in the second movie and thought it was only fitting. The books make easy decoration and I happened to have them, so how perfect is that?! The gold coins were left over from a gag gift last month and were perfect bait for Nifflers. Pickett also thought it would be fun to make his debut.

I will admit, I did make the table runner as well. It’s so simple and since it’s not movie specific I could use it quite often, especially during the Fall. I simply bought 2 yards, sewed them together and then top stitched it closed. Otherwise, Homegoods is my favorite place for table runners.

4. Popcorn is ALWAYS a good idea! – I decided to play a bit with the popcorn as we were going to be feasting on it the next day at the theatre as well. I have an air popper so as the popcorn was freshly popped and hot I added butter, salt, pepper, rosemary and parmesan cheese! It was a perfect savory mix to help battle all of the sweets. Not to mention a fun, warming touch.

5. Make it Pretty – Making the world a prettier place used to be my mission statement. I think it secretly still is. I can’t just make something, I need to add a bit of flair to it. In this case I love to do a digital print. I used to have an Etsy store where I sold all of my prints, as I make them quite regularly. For Fantastic Beasts I used the quote “worrying means you suffer twice” from Newt and added a 20’s glam feel to it.

I also needed to add a pop of pink for no other reason than it’s just me! These five little vases of mini carnations were just the trick to add more color. I picked up two bouquets at Trader Joes and just cut them down to size.

Hope you enjoyed my movie night! I just love a good theme. What movie night do you have coming up? Time to jazz it up a bit! Personally, I’m thinking about an Avengers theme for the new release in a couple months. Would you like to see it?

Have a blessed weekend y’all!