Girls’ Night at The Movies: Keanu, Homemade Face Masques & 4 Pounds of Red Vines! #SharetheSoft #Cbias

I am a member of the Collective Bias Social Fabric Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias and Kleenex Brand Tissues #CBias #SocialFabric #SharetheSoft

When you think of a girls’ night in, you might picture a romantic chick flick playing to a group of ladies surrounded by boxes of tissues, dabbing their tears while they eat chocolates. This is pretty much what happens when my best friend and I rent movies, except we don’t pass around the tissues because we’re watching sad films – we’re grabbing them because we have sinus issues, allergies and sneezing fits! So when it came to my attention that Kleenex was offering special value packs with peelie coupons for for a $4 movie rental on Vudu, I knew this was the perfect thing to pick up for our next movie night. I would need both of these things for our next girls’ gathering anyway, so I was all over this coupon!

Now that I had an excuse to plan a frugal movie night, I had a look at Vudu’s website and mulled over what to rent. My BFF and I have several different traditions for our movie nights, one of which we dub “Hot Man Movie Night”. My favorite actor is Keanu Reeves, as you may have gathered from my decor, just so happens to have a new release out called Side By Side, a documentary he produced about filmmaking where he interviews legendary directors such as Martin Scorsese, James Cameron and David Lynch. This came out late last year and had a limited theatrical run, so it never came to our local cinemas and I’ve been dying to see it. Vudu just so happened to have this film, so now I knew just what to rent!

When I plan parties, I usually envision a theme, so I thought about what might be fun to do for our movie night. Since we were going to watch a documentary about filmmaking, I thought it would be fun to do a “Home cinema” party, so I set up a movie projector and arranged several folding chairs in the living room, rolling out a yoga mat to mimic theater seating. Each seat had its own box of Kleenex, so that we’d have it close by for those inevitable sneezing fits!

I created “Movie Tickets” for my guests that I placed right by the door – these were favor bags that I made to look like theater tickets. Each bag contained a bag of microwavable popcorn and a pocket pack of Kleenex. I made a bunch of favors bags in case my other girlfriends could make it, but due to school and or/flu it was just my BFF and I – which was probably for the best, since I don’t know if the other ladies would have found our silly hijinks as hilarious as we did! 😉

Of course, you can’t go to the movies without picking up some snacks, so I created my own concession stand! I filled my kitchen table with staples like popcorn, soda, and movie candy: Whoppers, Milk Duds, and four pounds of Red Vines, to name a few! I also made my own little menu sign that I hung above the table to complete the look.

Naturally, you can’t have a ladies’ night in watching hot man movies without some girlie activities. My friend had found a recipe on Pinterest for homemade peel-off face masques, so we got comfy in our PJs and got ready for some pampering fun. The recipe called for green tea mixed with gelatin and microwaved, so I put the kettle on and found my (Very old) jumbo box of gelatin. The green tea was so hot after it brewed that we decided to skip the microwaving and just add the gelatin as it was. We quickly mixed it together and, using butter knives, attempted to quickly smear it over our faces before it hardened. It didn’t seem to be a very good consistency and it also smelled pretty bad (I believe “Dead things” was the description used), but surprisingly, it did harden up as promised.

Once we had the masques on – which was no easy feat, since we were doubled over laughing at how ridiculous it was! – my bestie mentioned that one of the reviews on this masque entioned that you could apply tissue strips on top to make it easier to peel off. Well, since I had just stocked up on Kleenex for the party, this was perfect timing! We tore up several strips of Kleenex and layered them all over our faces – we felt kind of like mummies!

Now that we were super beautiful, it was time to start the movie! Redeeming my movie credit was really easy – all I had to do was go to walmart.com/kleenex and click on the “Get Your Movie Now” button. This takes you to a landing page on Vudu where you enter the code found on the back of the peelie coupon. Then you can either log into your Vudu account if you’re already registered (like me) or create a new account if this is your first time using the service. Then bam! The credit is applied to your account and you can rent whatever you like. To show you how easy it was, I took a few screenshots:

Side by Side was $5.99, so after applying my $4 coupon it was just $1.99 to rent. Yay! To read more about my experience renting the movie, click here to view my Google+ story.

The movie was really interesting – it’s a great look at the history of the film industry, what goes into making a movie and how technology is changing the way films are made. I highly recommend it whether you have a crush on Keanu or not. 😉

In honor of the movie, my BFF suggested we make our own “Sad Keanu” meme by posing with her half-eaten McChicken sandwich that she had bought on the way over. We put on my suit jacket and said that the Kleenex hanging off our chins could double as a beard. Behold:

Silly pictures, Keanu movies, snacks, and dubious Pinterest projects – this will go down in history as one of our most memorable movie nights, right next to that time we rented “Da Hip Hop Witch” and the Garbage Pail Kids Movie. Surprisingly, the directors of those classic films weren’t interviewed by Keanu…I can’t imagine why. 😉

So tell me, ladies: What do you do for girls’ night?