Art Birthday Party

My daughter wanted her 5th birthday to be a festive art party. We began by renting out a room in our local community center, which is incredibly cost effective if you are a resident, and the perfect blank canvas to begin bringing Emma’s art party ideas to life. We browsed Etsy for hours and finally settled on an adorable and colorful “Dress For A Mess/ We’re Going To Put The Art In Party” invitation. From there the planning was on. We found some frame tablecloths in white and black that served as the perfect backdrop for our table scape. We layered them with colorful paint splatter placemats. A mini easel and canvas served as place cards for each girl. We kept our themed plates and utensils off to the side with the rest of our “Starving Artists” food selections (Monet’s Mac & Cheese, Seurat’s Spaghetti and Meatballs, and Van Gogh’s Veggies) and continued layering our table with a few of our art projects, which included a bright and colorful necklace and a cupcake canvas, that I had drawn out before the party began. Each little artist received their own smock to protect their clothes. We hired an incredible face painter who had plenty of designs for the girls to choose from and was great about using paint colors that coordinated with each girl’s outfit. The girls assembled their necklaces and we quickly moved on to cupcake painting. Each girl received their own palette of colors determined by the birthday girl and then went to work creating their cupcakes. Rather than have a structured painting lesson we let the girls express themselves. Some cupcakes were traditional and others eclectic. Our final craft was decorating cupcakes baked by me. We found adorable round palettes that were perfect for holding a cupcake and ten different types and colors of sprinkles. After each cupcake had been decorated, we placed them in a pre-labeled bag for the girls to bring home. An hour before the party I decided to to cut some brightly colored card stock into 4”x 5.5” sheets and put some crayons into plastic cups. This little “Creation Station” was off to the side for the little girls who finished their art projects first. This was a little party saver and helped to avoid meltdowns from little girls without craft. After our little artists ate some linner, we enjoyed some funfetti vanilla cake baked and decorated by me with lots of delicious buttercream and art-themed fondant decorations. As the party came to a close each guest was presented with a paint can containing a few of my daughter’s favorite art supplies. We filled each can half way with either red, orange, yellow, green, blue or violet shredded paper to play on our theme and then added: clay, sidewalk chalk, color pencils, and personalized paint sticks with the name of each girl made out of crayon. The final addition to the favor paint can was a multi-colored, cherry flavored spiral lollipop.