Back to school apple party for Imara

Phew, another party complete, I am bushed after this one! This party was for my 3rd daughter Imara she turned 4 on the 29th January. Since school was starting back (after 8 very long weeks) on the 2nd February and Imara was starting a new Kindy I thought a back to school theme would be a good way to encourage some enthusiasm for school amongst my elder girls and hopefully make it easier for Imara to start the new year. I made a list of all the things Imara loves, apples, drawing, reading, writing etc and tried to draw some inspiration from her likes. I also looked, drooled and was inspired by Amy Atlas's Back to School bake sale, a feature Amy did for Parents Magazine back in September 2010. So many cool ideas, where to start! I featured the apple throughout the party as well as the bookworm because Imara always takes an apple to Kindy and LOVES to read the most. To start with I made Imara's apple invitation using Kikki K's apple tags, I just printed the details on some blank cardstock and cut it to fit the apple shape, I then used the Kikki K envelopes and stickers from their stationary range to send them off to her friends.

I then started off by painting some MDF boards with blackboard paint and with the leftover paint I covered an old dining table (that already had a lot of scribbles on it) top so the girls could have fun drawing on it after or during the party with some chalk. On the blackboard I stuck a white tree wall decal which also became the focal point for my table and the "vessel" for my homemade apple cookies. Yep, I hung apple cookies from my "tree", it looked so cute and best of all the girls just had to undo the ribbon bow if they wanted to eat one. I was then inspired by Bird's Party free downloadeable back to school printables (I used them on labels, tags and pencil toppers), they are amazing, but if you want something different please visit Bird's Party shop because she has some AMAZING designs to suit everyone.

The banner infront of the table I made using Dimple Prints free downloadeable alphabets, thank you Carli they are so cute, Carli also has an Etsy shop HERE.

The best thing about the blackboard paint on the table and walls is that I could use both surfaces as giant "lables" for my sweet goodies. Any excuse to write on walls and furniture ;-)
The building blocks (red ones on the right side of the table) are custom made by Lilly-Pilly arts on Ebay.

For the cake I decided on a small chocolate sponge filled with chocolate fudge icing, Imara's favourite flavour. Everything on the cake is edible and made from fondant, Imara loved the bookworm the best.

Instead of traditional platters and cake standsI decided to use mini blackboards resting on books (covered in craft paper) that I had lying around the house.

One of the items I made for the dessert table (since Imara LOVES drawing) are these cute pencils, I used mini sponge rolls (you could use twinkies or tootsie rolls) for the body of the pencil and mini icecream cones cut in half for the pencil leads. I then covered it all in coloured fondant.

Yummy apple pops inspired by Bakerella

Scrummy vanilla buttercake cupcakes with numbers, apple and worm toppers made from fondant.

One of Imara's favourite drinks is plain milk, so had to have that at the party! Instead of printing lables I bought these cute blackboard labels from Bradensgrace Wallart and wrote the word milk using plain white chalk. How cute are the polka dot straws from Tout Mon Amour? I love them, and they have heaps of other goodies, so please visit them to see for yourself.

The gorgeous birthday girl wore a custom made apple skirt with polkadot frill from Janum, thank you Majd I love the skirt! I made a matching T-shirt with a $4 Target T-shirt and some left over felt and fabric.
The party table was decorated with melamine plates (from Spotlight) and home made polkadot napkins and party hats (inspired by Kate Landers) I wrote each child's name on the table, in chalk, above each plate as place cards.

At the back of each chair is a handmade library bag containing a children's book about apples ;-) I made the bunting flags from Kokka green and red apples, Chalkboard Letters and Numbers fabric, Kaufman Metro Market Apple in Red and Michael Millers lime green polka dots fabric.

Each child took home these cute mini suitcases with Penny Scallan bag tags and stickers.

and each suitcase contained 1 x edible crayons, I handmade these using Parties by Hardie's cute tutorial, alphabet cookie snacks (made by me because I couldn't find any to buy at my local store grrr), notebook (covered in funky apple fabric) and pencil + apple. Hope you enjoyed reading about the party, please also join me on my Facebook Page, I would love to see you there.

Last but not least a HUGE thank you to Amy Atlas for featuring this party, I am beyond thrilled and honored!!!

Cheers,

Leoni