Awesome Art Birthday Party!

For my daughter Cloey's fifth birthday party, we went with an art theme.  It was SO much fun!  It was very colorful and the possibilities seemed endless.  We invited about 8 kids to keep it manageable.  Here are some highlights.

• Art Invitations - We sent out some super cute invites.  You can find the digital one here.

Rainbow Decorations - We used rainbow streamers and put them across the ceiling and put a bunch of white balloons on the end (like clouds) to give it a rainbow effect.  It was so pretty! We bought some art themed paper lanterns and cardboard cuts outs as well.  

• Customized aprons for each guest - Each guest received a customized art apron with their name on it.  You can get them here.

• Fun, colorful, kid-friendly food table - I made little art easels using colorful popsicle sticks and hot glue.  Then I printed out food cards to put on them.  We served flower shaped sandwiches, fruit, veggies, chips, pretzels, and animal crackers.  It was simple and well received. We got the platters and polka dot bowls from Michaels and the colorful bowls from Party City.

Canvas painting - Before all the kids came, I put each child's first initial on a canvas.  I used adhesive vinyl and a cutting machine.  The kids then painting the canvas, and after it dried a little big, we pulled the vinyl off. We used some neon paints I found for cheap, but I was disappointed in how light they were.  I would recommend using Crayola brand paints instead.

• Cupcake decorating - Each child received a simple white frosted cupcake on a pallette full of sprinkles and candies to decorate and eat of course!  We also had a local woman make a cake (for the adults to enjoy!)

• Egg throwing painting! This is was so much fun!  Before the party, we cut the tops of a ton of eggs and poured out the inside (lots of omelettes for the next few weeks!) and rinsed the shells.  Then we filled them with different colors of paint.  I made a large canvas with Cloey's name and the year using the adhesive vinyl again.  Then we put cardboard up on the side of the house and leaned the large canvas in front of it.  We let the kids throw the eggs at the canvas.  It was a blast!

• Paint the clown nose - This was a spin on the "pin the tail on the donkey" game.  We drew and painted a big picture of a clown, but left the nose white.  One at a time, each kid was blindfolded and given a paint brush with paint on the end.  They had to try to paint the nose.  

This party was so much fun.  All the kids went home with their aprons and artwork they completed.  I highly recommend this theme for any age because you can alter the projects based on their ability level.

 Have you ever thrown an art party?  What sorts of activities did you do?