Back To School Dinner 2016 - Life is a Party

Yesterday was the first day of school, and share all our fun Back To School dinner ideas with you.

You can find last years Back to School dinner here, and the year before that here, for more inspiration.

The Back To School Table

This year, I went with a bit of a book page theme. The table runner was made from some old books. I ripped out some pages, and sewed them together on the sewing machine. The book pages set the tone for a mainly black and white colour scheme.

The placards were some sweet library card inspired tags.

For the bottles of water, I used some cute numbered gift tags I picked up at Ikea.

And on the straws, some cute “school days” flags I made.

The table was really very simple. I always think of apples when I think of back to school, so the simple centrepiece was just a line of fresh apples. They smell so good!

More Back To School Decorations

In the background, I decorated the buffet with a back to school theme too.

Book Page Tassels

In keeping with the book page theme, I made some pretty book page tassels.

The book page tassels were simple to make from some old books, and with some black and white washi tape. To make them just tear some pages out of an old book, and cut them in strips with about an inch of the top of the page, so that they’re all still connected. Then roll up several of the cut pages together and secure with a bit of hot glue and some washi tape.

It was fun to use my vintage globes and few other school supplies to set the tone.

Food Ideas

We had pasta for dinner -a real favourite around here. And for dessert, a few school inspired treats.

You can see how I made the Book Page Sugar Cookies and Marshmallow Pencil Treats here.

We traditionally have an apple dessert for this special dinner, and I had great plans for one this year. But I used all the apples on the table and ran out of time, so I picked up some apple fritter donuts and decorated them with some book page pom pom picks. I haven’t had an apple fritter in ages -boy were they yummy and so easy. 😉

We had a great time hearing all about the first day, from choosing a class pet (hermit crabs and fish are in the running) to not being able to find the washroom, to who they sat with on the bus. It was a great family time, and one of our favourite traditions.