Adult Craft Party: An Old-School Crafts Bash to Bring Us Back
September is the time when kids, teens, and college students of all ages are back to school and the academic year is officially in full swing. Anybody who’s ever gone to school can relate to that late summer/early fall nostalgia for crisp school supplies, fun new school outfits, and retro items that everybody used to have like trapper keepers and Lisa Frank-everything. Maybe it’s because, these days, everything is so digital – including children’s education. Even adults who’ve been employed for decades can still fondly remember the old smell of freshly sharpened No. 2 pencils, pink parallelogram-shaped rubber erasers, and crisp paper. We often crave the tangible experience of a new start that’s missing from modern office supplies and tablets.
That’s where an adult craft party comes in as the perfect antidote to back-to-school nostalgia (and to adulting in general). It’s an old-school crafts bash where you get your friends together to draw, write, cut, glue, stick stickers, or do any such fun crafty things. While this is something that’s best suited for an early September back-to-school vibe, it’s a party you can host any time of the year, and however often! There’s nothing saying you can’t hold it on a monthly basis if you and your friends want. Let’s get started to cover everything you need to host!
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How to Throw a Craft Party
1. Set an Old-School Back-to-School Scene with an Array of Craft Supplies
Time to get crafty! Go to any dollar store, office supply store, or hypermarket to pick up plenty of craft supplies. You can usually find inexpensive party supplies if you know where to look – including thrift stores or craft-specific thrift stores. You can also find supplies like vintage construction paper online.
Here’s a list of some basic craft supplies to get you started:
- Construction paper
- Scissors
- Glue (Elmer’s, glue stick, etc.)
- Coloured pencils, crayons, markers, Sharpies, etc.
- Stickers such as this Lisa Frank sticker activity set with over 1000 stickers, pad, and markers
- Pretty notebooks
- Staples, 3-ring hole punch, plain paper
- Pom poms, pipe cleaner, etc.
The way to decorate for a craft party is to keep it sweet and simple. String crepe paper streamers across the ceiling or doorways. Scatter colourful tissue paper confetti. If you can make the time, DIY crafty back-to-school themed decorations. Cut out ‘globes’ from blue construction paper and trace continents on green paper to cut out and glue on the globes, which you can then hang from the ceiling with a nod to geography class. But if you can’t DIY crafty décor in advance, that’s what your party is for anyway!
2. Prepare Nostalgic Food and Beverages
A craft party is the perfect excuse to serve all the delicious junk food you enjoyed during your school years. Hot Pockets, Toaster Strudels, Pizza Bites, Pizza Hut, Doritos, and any snacks that everyone indulged in with blissful ignorance to ingredient integrity. However, while a craft party is perfectly suited to a smaller crowd, feeding a larger group of guests in this manner can get expensive. If you want to keep it thrifty, the key is to prepare your own dishes rather than buy pre-made foods. This means you need to plan your menu and set aside time to cook/prepare food in advance (included in your time block to-do list below). If time is scarce, I’ve found that the best compromise is to prepare simple, hearty salads and dishes with quality ingredients, and buy other dishes pre-made. This way you have a healthy mix of homemade and store-bought foods.
Here’s a list of easy recipes to try out:
- Carrot and cucumber mini sandwich bites
- Peanut butter celery sticks (frogs on a log)
- Back-to-school turkey pinwheels
- Chile-lime party mix
- Rice Krispie treats
- Party punch
- Serve food on any of these 9” solid colour paper plates
- …and offer these vintage Lisa Frank paper napkins!
3. Set the Ambience with the Perfect Playlist or Video
Background music creates a party’s vibe. The best music option for an old-school craft party is a throwback playlist featuring all your favourite songs from school days. Play a variety of songs spanning elementary school through high school. Everyone will love hearing retro classics! You can find a curated playlist on YouTube from any given year or era, or you can create a playlist from your own music collection. Or you can play an old album front to back (bonus points if it’s an actual LP, cassette tape or CD). There is no one-size-fits-all – your choice of tunes depends on your own preferences. Just keep it vintage with old-school selections that everyone will enjoy recognizing!
4. Add Evocative Scents
We covered the sights, the flavors, and the sounds of a craft party. Now, consider the scents! To truly immerse your guests in an old school back-to-school bash, engage the evocative sense of smell with any of these nostalgic candles:
- Nostalgic 1960s No.2 pencil shavings scented candle
- Or this pencil shavings scented candle
- Crayon scented candle
5. Plan Craft Activities…Or Just Let Guests Free-Range Craft
We covered craft supplies in the first section of this how-to craft party guide. Now, think about craft ideas for what to actually do with the supplies. Don’t try too hard here – nobody’s coming to your party to master advanced origami; they’re coming to reminisce about old school days with the simple pleasures of crafting. Maybe someone colours; maybe someone cuts and pastes; maybe someone drinks wine while watching everyone else slave away with the scissors. It doesn’t have to be complicated! But it does help to have some clever ideas as there will likely be at least one who waxes more creative. This handy list of DIY construction paper crafts offers some fun ways to create construction crafts.
The nice thing about crafting is that it’s easy to do while conversing. It doesn’t require a ton of concentration that diverts attention from conversation. So invite guests to share stories while they’re creating – maybe ask everyone about their best back-to-school memories, their favourite classes growing up, or any other fun topics. I guarantee you’ll learn plenty about each other that you never knew!
6. Establish Guest Participation
Guest participation is optional and involves how you’d like your guests to participate or contribute to your party. Maybe you request that guests bring a dish or drink to share. Maybe you invite them to bring their own crafting supplies to share. It’s up to you whether you request participation but make sure you communicate it up front when you initially invite guests.
Of course, always choose your guests mindfully and with their interests in mind. Prioritize friends who you know would most enjoy a craft party. But don’t shy away from others who you think aren’t very crafty. You never know, you may inspire their budding creativity!
Checklist of Items You Need
These are the things you need for your party:
- Plenty of craft supplies
- Craft party decorations (optional)
- Food and drinks
- Old school throwback party playlist
- Nostalgic-scented candles (optional)
- Specific craft plans/ideas (optional)
Preparation Checklist for Your Adult Craft Party
1. First, confirm that people can come on any chosen date:
- Choose party date/time, and preferably alternative date(s) as well
- Choose guest list and establish minimum number of guests you’d like (to make it worth your effort)
- Six weeks out, confirm guests’ interest in the party and availability on chosen party date(s)
- If your preferred minimum number of guests confirm interest and availability, have them secure calendar date for your awesome craft party!
2. Then, proceed with the fun planning:
- Schedule time on your calendar for each step of party prep as listed below (securing and/or making food/drinks, etc.)
- Create invitations with all the details and send them out 4 weeks before the party
- Order any craft supplies and decorations 3 weeks out (so they arrive in time to prepare and set up)
- Shop for any craft supplies/decorations you don’t order online, as well as non-perishable food/drinks
- In your planned time slots, DIY any party decorations
- In your planned time slots, acquire perishable food/drinks early enough in advance to prepare in time
- In your planned time slots, set up any decorations
- In your planned time slots, prepare food/drinks (depending on how long things keep)
3. Day of Party (in your amply planned time slot):
- Prepare any foods/drinks that are too fresh to do any earlier
- Set up any quick/easy last-minute decorations as well as craft supplies
- Prepare ambience (music, candles)
- Get dressed in what you image would be your favourite back-to-school outfit
- Once everything’s ready, take a little time for any self-care activities to get in a good head space if you aren’t already. You want to be a relaxed, centered, and happy host – both for yourself and for your guests, who will pick up on your contagiously good vibe and automatically be happier as well!
Every part of the party planning process is meant to be enjoyable – from menu planning to decorating. A craft party is delightfully simple. It isn’t a big, fancy affair. It’s laid back and as small or large as you want it to be. Still, you can be a good host by putting thought and care into party preparation while also keeping a flexible mindset for any changes. At the end of the day, the goal is for you and your guests to have a good time. So enjoy the planning process and craft away on party day!