STYLING | Rustic Popcorn Bar

Well it's about time I posted the full details from the Rustic Popcorn Bar I created for the September issue of
The Party Dress Magazine...

The inspiration behind its creation was my Family Reunion this summer.
I wanted to do something special for our "movie night"...
We'd be watching a slideshow of family photos I was asked to put together...
So....
a POPCORN BAR was the perfect answer!
I mean really...
What goes better with watching a movie, afterall?
(and it WAS a movie - the slideshow ended up being one hour and twenty minutes long) *gasp*

Repurposing this cart as the focal point along with some borrowed rustic wooden barrels...
I designed the popcorn bar to be interactive so that everyone, (even the kids), could customize their own bags of popcorn.
The food prep was SUPER simple since I bought bags of fresh pre-popped popcorn I ordered from my local grocery store.
I picked up some salt shakers from a local restaurant supply store...
dressed them up with some labels...
and filled them with a variety of popcorn seasonings I ordered from Kernel Seasons.
Additional candies and peanuts were offered for those wanting a sweet and salty mix...
and there were also Popcorn Balls from Kernel Encore available for the kids.
The kids LOVED those almost as much as I loved displaying them on The Pastry Pedestal™ *wink*

I also ordered five unusual popcorn flavors from Kernel Encore, (no easy task from their 200+ flavor selection),
and created a simple game called "Mystery Popcorn Flavors".
(the person to guess all five of the flavors was the winner).

Okay - that's enough explaining...
I'll let the photos do the rest of the talking...

I hope you feel inspired to create your own popcorn bar...

It's seriously one of the easiest "dessert" buffets I've ever put together.

And just to make things easier...

All of the printables you see here are now available for purchase in my shoppe!

Everything comes in a "Printable Bundle"

• 24x36 Olde Fashioned Popcorn Poster

• 8 Popcorn Seasoning Salt Shaker Labels

• 4 Candy Topping Labels (including label for Popcorn Balls)

• Mystery Popcorn Game Label and Coordinating Numbers (1-5)

• Coordinating 8.5 x 11 "Instructions" sign for guests

KEEPiNG iT REAL

First of all...

As I mentioned before in this post...

The Popcorn Bar looked nothing like this for my family reunion.

The cart was damaged in transit so my plans/vision were drastically changed...

everything was set up on the kitchen counter instead. *frown*

(Not quite the effect I was going for - but thankfully my family appreciated everything anyway). *wink*

Once the cart was put back together (only good enough for the photo shoot, mind you)

I had to recreate everything for the magazine feature. 

On a different note...

I enjoyed some WONDERFUL and much needed alone time over the past three days.

Aside from spending an evening with my mom watching movies and eating stir fry...

most of my precious, quiet hours were spent working...

on projects...

on design work...

on filling orders...

on painting my studio...

and on a gorgeous photo shoot I can't wait to share with you!!