Movie Night's New Groove: Poison Potions & Tasty Pill Bugs

I've been scheduling weekly craft nights with a few friends lately, which has done straight-up wonders for my mental health. Our little group has been individually isolated all year, so it's good for them, too - and of course we're being smart about it, with masks and distancing.

Anyhoo, I was so excited for Emperor's New Groove movie night this weekend that I combined it with craft night. That way John and I had an excuse to make themed foods and drinks AND we could all make teeny potion bottles, like this:

Now with that all-important Llama label:

Oh, I can feel it.

Amazingly I already had everything in my craft stash: mini glass bottles, nail shimmer powders, epoxy to glue the corks in - plus I found a bunch of charm options in my jewelry stash, so we could get even more creative with it:

Most of this came from you readers. I love it when you send me your broken jewelry bits, I'm like a little dragon pawing through her hoard of sparklies, ha.

Fun shot through John's magnifying glass.


Tangled vibes.

We filled our bottles with glycerin because it's thick like oil - while being crystal clear - and also because it's what I had on hand. Then we played with food coloring and shimmer powders, which got EVERYWHERE and quickly coated our masks, shirts, skin, etc.

I wish I'd taken a picture of the table AFTER - it was so covered in shimmer dust and colorful blotches it looked like some sort of gruesome - but sparkly -  fairy massacre. Thank goodness for brown craft paper.

More potion pretties:

Photos don't do the shimmer justice; this one looks like a purple galaxy.

And this one looks like a liquid dark pearl - a perfect match to the dangle:

John cut some tiny llamas and llama skulls on our Cricut, and I love that both Bonnie and Kari chose the skulls:

The skull matches the movie one, but I just realized it looks like an evil version of the Scrubbing Bubbles mascot:

"They're here to... [sunglasses]... SCRUB YOU OUT."
 

I forgot to take a picture of the rest, so here are more from Kari's Instagram:

All of these bottles are suuuuper tiny - smaller than your pinky finger - so great for necklaces.

Now let's get to the most ridiculous part of the night: THE FOOD.

We made everything just before the movie, so we could go to our separate parts of the house to eat. We split into 2 different rooms to make sure everyone was at least 6 feet apart.

MY SPINACH PUFFS!

(This is before baking; they disappeared too fast after. We used canned croissant dough instead of puff, and filled with a cheesy egg spinach mixture.)



Last year we introduced some friends to New Groove and made spinach puffs and "Bahama Llamas" to celebrate. (Ingredients above.) So we did that again, but this time John and I upped our Groovy game by also adding a main course.

Annnd of course we chose the pill bug from the diner scene.

You know, this thing:

OH YEAH.

Over on the blog Disney Meals someone made one of these with homemade bread and mashed potatoes - but we didn't want to make bread, and we didn't have any little bowls to prop up the ends like they did:

Challenge: ACCEPTED.

So we bought Hawaiian rolls and sprayed them with edible blue spray:

Then we found our old Pensieve Punch bowl - which is from Dollar Tree, so it only cost a dollar: 

... and John cut it into a C shape with his dremel:

Like so.

(It's hard to photograph something crystal clear on a glass plate, but hopefully if you squint you can see it.)

This provides that all-important curve when you lay the bread rolls on top:

Or if you ever need to make a bready chaise lounge.

Next John dyed the mashed potatoes EXTRA yellow with food coloring:


"I can't believe it's not butter."

...and piped it on with a ziploc bag:



You don't need to pipe the potatoes; afterward I smoothed them with a spatula anyway.

We were really rushing at this point to finish before the movie started, so it was a mad scramble to find something to use for legs. Eventually I found a new package of Dollar Tree pipe cleaners, and, VOILA:



I was laughing so hard doing this, omigosh.

It's just... so wrong.

Sometimes I love being an adult.

Also you know you married the right person when you present them with a blue mashed potato bug and they say, "NOW HOLD ON A SECOND" and rush away, only to return with a fun stripey straw:

And then they pose with it like this:

Who slurped it better?

Of course humans cannot live on bread and mashed potatoes alone, so we served it with this Jack Daniel's pulled pork:

We get it at Winn Dixie: it's fully cooked, and you can microwave it, so super easy dinner fodder.

 

Since no one wanted to disassemble the pillbug we made little sandwiches with the remaining Hawaiian rolls, smearing on a dollop of mashed potatoes and topping with the pulled pork... and y'all. Y'ALL. So good. Especially when washed down with a sugary sweet Bahama Llama and a side of spinach puffs. Hnnnng. That's a dinner fit for an emperor, right there.

John and I love Emperor's New Groove so much I doubt this will be the last Groove-y thing we do, so I look forward to adding new foods or crafts or whatnot each time. Be sure to file this post away for the next time YOU watch, or in case you know someone awesome enough to have a New Groove themed birthday party. :D

I hope you're having an extra restful weekend!

Oh hey, and if you're able, check in with your strong friends today. You know, the ones who always seem to have it together, who never fall apart or ask for anything. I've been reminded this week how they're the ones who often get overlooked in a crisis, and after a year-long crisis, some of them are feeling a little forgotten. So go send some love their way, k?


*****

P.S. I tried to find the same pack of shimmer powders we used for the potion bottles on Amazon, but it's been so long the listing is gone. I did some digging, though, and this looks to be the most similar set:



It comes with 9 colors for $14. The white/pearl shimmers shift different colors in the light, so it's fun pairing them with different color bases - and you only need about 2 toothpicks full of powder for the tiny bottles we used, so they go a looooong way.

Plus if you add them over your nail polish, they do this:

OooOOOoooh.