Oscar Party Favors

Awards shows are all about celebrating, and a celebration calls for champagne. Send your guests home with mini bottles of sparkling wine or champagne to commemorate the evening. Mini champagne bottles can actually be very affordable if you know where to look. Take, for example, the mini bottle of J Roget Brut Champagne at Beverages & More: you can make out like a bandit with a 187 mL baby bottle for only $1.99. Under $2 per fabulous party favor? Practically unheard of.

If you have a bigger budget for favors, spring for mini bottles of "Cristalino" champagne at $4 a pop. The joke, of course, is that celebrities will be enjoying $500 bottles of Cristal champagne while your guests can sip on its cheaper, wannabe namesake Cristalino. But don't be fooled by the silly name-play - Cristalino is actually an incredibly highly rated champagne that tastes delicious. Perhaps the joke is on the celebrities who spend an extra $490 for Cristal.

2. That's a Wrap - Mini Picture Frames

Decorate the entryway to your home with a faux red carpet. Bust out your old Polaroid camera (you can still find the film on eBay if you're running low) and take a picture of each guest arriving on the red carpet. Insert their arrival shot into a cute director's clapboard photo frame ($1.96 each at Party Shelf) and give it to them to take home as a fun favor.

3. A Night at the Movies

Movie goers love watching the Oscars to see if their favorite flicks will win big. Encourage your guests' love for movies by making them the duds they'll need to create a theatre-like experience in their own home. Order small-sized movie theatre popcorn buckets and fill them with the following:

- 2 types of popular movie theatre candy (Junior Mints and Sour Patch Kids, for example)
- 2 wrapped bags of buttered popcorn they can pop at home
- $5 off gift certificate to a local movie theatre chain
- Goofy oversized black ‘celebrity' style sunglasses, just for fun

4. Golden Cupcakes

What could be better than taking home a golden statue? Taking home a golden cupcake, of course. That is, if your guests can make it home before devouring the deliciousness. Though the golden cupcake might not last as long as a statue, it's unbelievably tasty and looks impressive. Plus, it's proven that people love edible favors, so you can't go wrong with this one.

To make golden cupcake favors, pick your favorite cupcake recipe and frost the cupcakes generously. Place them in gold foil cupcake liners to cover the regular wrapper. These can be purchased from Cakes by Sam for $1.59 for 24 liners. In order to create the sparkling golden effect on the frosting, you'll need to purchase edible gold flakes. They can be purchased through an online store like Bake Deco, or at specialty bake shops in your city. Create golden cupcakes by generously sprinkling the edible gold flakes over the top of your cupcakes to cover the frosting in a shiny gold layer.

One thing to keep in mind is that edible gold flakes are real gold, which means they aren't exactly cheap (Bake Deco sells the flakes for $85 per gram, but the gram will last you a while). For the budget-friendly solution, consider using edible gold metallic glitter flakes. They mimic the real thing but only cost $5.95 per ounce (there are about 28 grams in an ounce) so you'll get 28 times the amount of gold glitter than you get real gold flakes for a small fraction of the price.

Make your golden cupcakes favor-friendly by placing them inside individual cupcake holders for guests to bring them home in. Crate & Barrel is having a sale on individual cupcake holders, which breaks the cost down to $2 per person (the price is $3.90 for two cupcake holders). Tie a golden bow on top of the cupcake holders to snazz them up, and attach a paper tag that says "Have a Sweet Night."