Do you have a book lover, aspiring writer, or bookworm in your life? Well, if you’ve checked out any of our other posts, you’d know that books are definitely front and center in our household. So naturally, we had to have a Vintage Library themed party at some point! 😉 We used this for a birthday party for our older child who is a bit obsessed with typewriters and the smell of physical books (hence the vintage theme), but it would definitely work for a back to school bash, library event, or any celebration for your bibliophile family and friends!
THE TABLE
Since we wanted to have a more vintage-theme, we chose a brown color scheme for the table and the decorations. We left the paper plates on the shelf and pulled out our brown and cream shaded stoneware (we definitely can’t claim they’re vintage plates but the colors fit the theme really nicely)!
We also wanted to highlight the library theme, so we made a few ‘library cards’ and printed them on some antique paper. We added one to each place setting. You can find some nice ones online to print/purchase or use our basic one above if you’re just using it for personal use 😉 If you don’t have any antique paper on hand, you can always try the coffee or tea technique to stain the paper and then scissors or a tool to distress the edges.
We also found some $5 plastic globes from the spot section on Target (woohoo!) but painted them in brown and tan shades. Full disclaimer – the continents are definitely not time-period correct since we were going with a vintage/antique theme, but no one was looking too closely 😉 We added a globe to each place setting as a decorative piece. They looked amazing!
If you’ve looked online, you’ve probably seen some really nice table runners made out of some distressed papers or old books. We followed the concept for our runner but added in a personal touch. While we did use some existing distressed papers from old books, magazines, and newspapers, we also printed out a few of our birthday celebrant’s favorite poems, quotes, and inspirational stories (using typewriter font, of course!). Then we used the distress technique to make them fit the look a bit more. We didn’t glue or tape them together because during the meal, we let everyone look through the pages – it got everyone talking about their favorite poems and short stories! And for our bibliophiles at the table, this was definitely an engaging topic!
For the centerpiece, we went with a brown pitcher filled with some gorgeous homemade paper flowers. Nice and simple 🙂 Click here to check out a detailed step by step guide. We also placed a few stacks of journals (composition notebooks, brown notebooks, and small brown kraft notebooks). The journals we later gave away as ‘Thank You’ gifts at the end of the party 🙂
THE PHOTO BOOTH
When we can, we always try to set up a make-shift photo booth area – it doubles as a fun activity for your guests AND also helps set the theme. For our parties, we simply hang up the backdrop on a wall (it works pretty well & saves on the cost of a stand 😉 ). For our vintage theme, we hung up a Vintage Old Travel World Map. Otherwise, have your bookshelf front & center with a few book props or comfy chairs! It will definitely set that book reading mood 🙂
ACTIVITIES
In addition to the photo booth, we also set up a typewriter in the party area. We had a few vintage/antique sheets so that everyone could take a turn to write a few lines. We had considered the idea of having a single story that everyone added onto but instead went with the free-for-all style 🙂
We also had a ‘suggestion wall’ where everyone could write down a book, a brief summary, and why everyone should reach it 🙂 At the end of the day, everyone could take a picture of the suggestion wall to get ideas for their next read! Note: we did have a ‘take a suggestion / leave a suggestion’ concept for another book party. BUT we found that everyone wanted to see everyone else’s suggestion, and so went with this idea instead. As an added bit of fun, instead of regular pen/paper, we placed a nice calligraphy pen and some smaller cut antique pieces of paper. It was just as entertaining to write with the pen & ink as it was to share ideas for everyone’s next read 🙂
As a group activity, we passed out printouts of a customized crossword puzzle. This was a super fun activity but does require that you know a bit about your guests. We picked a few trivia clues from books/plays/poems that we knew our birthday kid and guests were fond of & created some clues based on those (e.g. The name of the wizard boy in your favorite magical series, The magical land where the dragons from your favorite series are born). We used the Crossword Puzzle Reading Worksheet Generator from education.com which is so amazing – you type in the word/answer and the clue & it automatically draws out your crossword and clues!!! You can scramble it a few times if you don’t like the first layout. BUT, it will only allow you to generate/download the actual pdf per month, so make sure you like the preview layout & clues before you click download. The group definitely loved this activity!
AND for our finale, we had one main event where everyone played together… A Personalized Library Escape Room! (Click here to check out the step by step instructions) If you’re looking for some virtual or printable escape rooms, there are TONS online if you do a quick search. We wanted ours to be a bit more interactive than a virtual one and also have some personal touches, so we created a few clues that would reference books we had in our library. For our “Escape Room”, we didn’t actually escape from anything but ended up having to open up a locked book with candy inside! It was super fun and involved many book favorites that brought up so many memories and happy stories!
THE GIVE-AWAYS
Our table actually showed a sneak peak of our “goodie-bags”, which in this case wasn’t a goodie bag. We did toy with buying everyone a book but opted instead for some nice journals. We went for a handful rather than buying some nice faux leather ones, but everyone was happy with theirs 🙂
We also bought some mini candles from the Dollar Tree and wrapped them up to fit our theme. We used some vintage paper and printed out the word ‘gratitude’ with the definition in typewriter font. The word said it all 🙂 We were more than grateful to share such an amazing day and our love of books with loved ones!
THANK YOU!!!
Thank you so much for checking out our party planning article. Hopefully it gave you some great ideas for your next celebration!
If you did enjoy this, please let us know below or follow us on Pinterest. Also, If you haven’t already and are still looking for that perfect party theme, feel free to check out some of our other Party Guides or Ideas for Booklovers!
Happy Party Planning 🙂
