Art Party

When Kiddo #1 decided she wanted an "Art Party" for her 6th birthday, I looked at her and thought to myself, "Of COURSE you do. That's single-handedly the messiest party that exists in kid-dom."

I smiled and told her we'd think about it.  I mulled over the idea for a few days, hit up Pinterest for some inspiration, and continued to think.

And then, I realized that if I have an art party and I actually can pull this off, I can be all "Honey, we can't paint today, it's too messy. PLUS, you just had your Art Party birthday 8 months ago. Be thankful!"

Score one for moms everywhere.

The birthday girl picked her balloon bouquets all by herself.

Two nights before the Art Party, I sat on my living room couch, screwing a wood screw into the end of an empty paint can (purchased at the local hardware store) through which I could feed some fishing line so that I might create the optical illusion that some unseen force was magically pouring paint all over my house.  While I was doing this, I was thinking I may have bitten off a bit more than I could chew.  The house was a disaster, the paint can thing was starting to seem impossible and holy crapola, WHAT WAS I THINKING???

As the wood screw penetrated the can, however, tension lifted and I could suddenly see the plan coming together.  Plus, as I taped the the dollar store plastic table cloths into the paint cans, I realized they were doing double duty here: they not only looked like dripping paint but also protected the walls from the budding Jackson Pollocks.

Really, for $6 each can/table cloth combo, it makes a great décor statement, don't you think? I made another set of paint cans for the supply table (which I quickly realized I would need to put together not only for the cute display purposes, but also because keeping half a dozen 5 and 6-year olds occupied would require several different things to do, which all require several different tools.).

The dining room table with handy chair covers.

Once I set up the living room/entrance way I realized that I wouldn't have enough room to do the works of art in my kitchen (at that table), nor would the living room be the best location.  While we've destroyed the carpets in there already, paint and glue and glitter all come off wood easier than carpeting.  To the dining room I went.

It didn't occur to me that 5 and 6-year olds would be painting, cutting, gluing, beading and otherwise making gigantic messes on my precious dining room furniture until the morning of the party.  Luckily I bought a couple of heavy duty table cloths and had another mom come over and cut them into chair covers.  Best. Idea. Ever.  Seriously. I truly think that was the most innovative thing we did that day, and we did a ton of stuff.

Here are the little dollar store easels and canvas set up at each kiddo's spot at the table. That particular canvas was used to make a collage (gluing an old story book that we ripped up/cut up, added tissue paper and bits of scrapbooking fodder). It was our first work and it was super fun to watch the kids get down with glue. Oh, the little aprons on each chair were part of their favour. I bought some canvas at JoAnn's, sewed them together, adding ribbon to tie them.  It was fun and cheaper than buying the packs of 5 aprons for $30 at JoAnn's, but I also picked sale fabrics.

Here's the supply table where my other two paint cans were "spilling" (seriously, I want to use these somewhere in the house but can't quite figure out where. Maybe the craft table downstairs? Kiddo #2's big boy room?)

It was super fun putting paint brushes in big containers, and covering recycled stuff with ribbon to make it look jazzy. Seriously, this was such a fun party to decorate!

If you have a keen eye, you'll see that our wedding picture is hanging above the supply table. Mostly I didn't think about it. Huh. It's our 10 year anniversary this year, actually. Talk about a work of art. Ba-dum-bum.

Let's see what else is in this picture. The bigger canvasses (on the right) were for their paintings, as was the various acrylic paints).  The roll of white paper (middle of the picture) was for frottage (we went for a walk on the hottest day of the world and collected leaves and sticks and things that we could do paper rubbings with crayons).

Such a fun time for Art!

Frottage

It was cute and a good little walk to break up the party.  I made some Shrinky Dink jewellery things with each kiddo's initial on it. On the back there was a "thank you for coming to my party" message.  (Do you remember Shrinky Dinks? Those plastic forms you'd colour and put in the oven to shrink them to 1/10th their original size? I think I had Smurfs ones once).  So I made some for the kids and then put a jump ring on them and gave them to each kiddo.  With that, each child got a cord, some pony beads and I also gave each kiddo a washer (again from the local hardware store) that I'd painted with nail polish.  Pinterest, seriously, you are AWESOME.

Jewellery Making

By the end of our party, each kiddo took home a collage canvas, a frottage paper, a canvas she'd painted, a necklace she'd made and an apron.  In retrospect, I think I should've had them decorate a paper bag for the LOOT they'd make, instead of sending each kid home with her stuff in a plastic bag from the grocery store. But that's just an upgrade for next time.  Oh, and I had these great marbles to make paint with marbles-- I had great boxes in which we were going to tape a paper, then add some paint in globs, throw in some marbles and slowly roll the marbles through the paint to create crazy lines.  We didn't get to that, and that's ok.  I always have too much stuff for the kids to do.  I also cut salt dough sculptures mostly because I dried out the dough beforehand. Oops.  See, I have an intense fear of kids hopped up on birthday madness tearing me apart because there's a lull in the activities, so I over plan.

Cutest. Cupcakes. Ever.

OH, but here's the BEST part.  I can't bake. Well, that's not the best part, but it leads to the best part.
Check out the cupcakes my not-quite-sister-in-law made! I nearly died when I saw them!  And they tasted amazing-- no dairy, no eggs in them, and yet they were amazingly kid-friendly.  Everyone loved them and I really can't tell you how amazingly cute they were! (I'll let the exclamation marks speak for me!)

Such a fun day!

Does your kiddo want to have an art party? What kinds of activities will you have the children do?