Let's Have an Art Party!

This year marked my boys' FIFTH birthday.  The big FIVE!  I feel like time has flown by.  I did, in earnest, ask if they could revert back to their 2.5-3 year old selves instead of turning five and they both adamantly refused.  Sigh - I guess I'll just have to deal with it.

I think turning five is a big deal.  It's probably the first real birthday party that I can remember myself.  And since it is their last year at their preschool, I kind of felt obligated to invite their school friends over for their birthday (we've attended SO MANY birthday parties in the past two years for their school friends...don't ask about this whole obligation business).

Anyone who knows my kids knows that they are as opposite as opposites can be.  Even their pediatrician says that they're not really twins - they're more like siblings.  They are so different.  I have one child that loves super heroes and sports.  I have another kid that loves animals and playing toy food.  So where is that happy medium for a good theme for a birthday party?  Art...of course.  It's SOOOO obvious, isn't it?

All kidding aside, I chose to have an art party theme because I wanted the boys and their friends to do something fun and creative. I also wanted the kids to have something fun to bring home.  I also failed to notify the boys that they were even having a party because (BECAUSE) I did not want to deal with 1) threatening to have no party if they were being bad, 2) specific requests for what they wanted at their party...like a bouncy house with a slide, and 3) I didn't want them to keep talking about it for weeks on end with everyone. So when did they find out they were having a birthday party?  About 30 minutes before start time.

Drawing from ideas that I saw on Pinterest, I had purchased 8x8 canvases from Michael's - I got them on sale so stocked up on 20+ canvases.  And the bottles of paints were also on sale at the time.  And I bought some six-color paint palettes from Amazon and colored smocks from Oriental Trading.  It was all coming together quite nicely.  I had originally wanted to purchase little easels for the kids to bring home so they could display their canvases but there are no easels specifically made for that size (I actually ordered a bunch and sent them all back).
So what were the kids going to do on these canvases?   This was hard - would it be free paint?  Would it be 'follow an instructor' like my Crafty Momma friends do during Sip-n-Paint?  No.  I settled on initials!  So I purchased some Green Frog (this really is the best) painter's tape and taped out each child's first initial on the canvas. By having this done ahead of time, the kids could go right into painting and go play for the rest of the time.  And it also minimized any work I needed to do the day of so I could focus on helping kids or doing a last minute canvas taping.

One of our guests hard at work painting his canvas.

So I'm thinking that painting each canvas would take like 30 minutes - and then the kids could let them dry in the sun and go play and eat and have cake.  WRONG!  When you're four to five years old, painting (and egg dying for that matter) takes five minutes TOPS!  This equated to more drying time for the canvases.

Drying painted canvases on the front lawn.

Overall, I think the kids had a great time.  I made sure there were buckets of water available for dirty paint brushes.  We had a utility sink ready for the kids to wash their hands and thankfully (and this was one of my worst fears about hosting an art party) no paint got anywhere besides the tablecloths and canvases.  Whew!  Just to tell you how much I had to step out of my comfort zone for this party...I tarped my driveway, where the kids would be painting. This is how afraid I was.  But they did great and I can chuckle about it now...ha ha ha.

Tarped driveway, paper covered tables.  Everything was disposable.

By the time the party was over, paint was dry and the tape could be peeled off to reveal a pretty awesome piece of art!

Finished products - S, M, and L

As a cute goodie bag idea, I purchased mini paint cans from Paper Mart (online) and filled them with paint tubs, paint blotters (both from Oriental Trading) and a few pieces of chocolate kisses and snack size bars. (SIDE NOTE: I purchased those strips of paint tubs that have six colors in them - and cut all the tubs apart from the strip and filled each paint can with three different colors.) Outside of the paint can, I attached a chubby brush (from Michael's) along with a favor tag I found on Etsy. The same Etsy vendor made the invitation, thank you cards and our birthday banner.  It was so cute and well done.

I've already had a few friends say they are going to do the same party theme for their kids - glad I was able to start a local trend! It really was a fun time - fun to plan and fun to relive through pictures!

I'm really happy with the way things turned out.  The boys were happy, the kids were happy and they all have a keepsake from their 5th birthday party!

Happy Birthday, Liam and Matty!