Art Themed Birthday Party

I have been dying to have an Art themed birthday party for one of my little ones for a few years now. I was finally able to convince my soon to be 3 year old daughter that this was a perfect party for her. I can give her a set of watercolor paints and she will paint for about 30-60 minutes. It is a magical time for mommy!

I started prepping for the party by scouring Pinterest for ideas. I created a board with some of my favorites. Come check it out along with past theme ideas I have used.

Follow Stacey's board Art Themed Party on Pinterest.

This was meant to be an outdoor party, but it was practically a monsoon outside and our lake town had flooding everywhere! It actually couldn't have been a better themed party for such a yucky day. The kids were busy and had a blast!

I found most of the decorations and party items at Hobby Lobby. You can find similar paint palettes {here}. They seriously have everything you could ever want for an art party. I may have gone a little overboard, but honestly spent under $100 for everything.

I chose to use the colors of the rainbow because that is what I think of when I think of art. It was such a bright and cheerful color palette, especially on such a dreary day.

I kept the theme going with some of the food too. I created a fruit tray using the colors of the rainbow. It was bright, yummy, and super easy to prepare.

So ask anyone and they will tell you I can get nervous or excited and my brain begins to go in a million directions. In order to combat this during our activities I created a schedule. It was honestly only for me. One of the little girls caught a glimpse of it and kept referring to the schedule from that point on. She totally made my heart smile!

Turns out I should have cross checked it with my awesome hubby. When we were done painting the canvases I looked and saw it was time to eat. Well guess what... he had not started grilling yet AND it was pouring. Ok then... onto plan B.

Once all the children had arrived I gathered them to the table and gave them a picture frame to color anyway they chose. I got these cute FREE frames from The 3AM Teacher. They were absolutely perfect for our needs.

When the kids were done coloring we hung them up in our Art Gallery. Truth be told we kept this up for almost an entire week. My daughter kept walking up to it and telling me to look at the art. Such an easy and inexpensive decoration!

Next up was Canvas Painting. We needed to do this early on so the paintings would have time to dry. I purchased tiny canvases. They were 3 x 3 and came 6 in a package. They were the perfect size for the little ones who have trouble filling a page. I also bought paint palettes. They came 10 in a package. Believe me when I say all of the supplies were really affordable!

It was fun to see each age group create age appropriate art. This party theme really could be repeated in a few years.

Since dinner was not ready yet we moved onto Fruit Loop Necklaces. I took a piece of ribbon and knotted a Fruit Loop on before the kids arrived. This prevented the cereal from falling off. We later discovered that we should tape one end of the ribbon like a shoe lace to make it easier to thread the cereal. This helped the little ones a ton! It was a great fine motor lesson. One of the little girls made a pattern too!

It didn't take the kids long to figure out they could eat their jewelry.

After the kids had some play time and were fed it was FINALLY time to decorate the cupcakes. I used more paint palettes as a plate for the cupcake. The little paint holders were perfect for holding sprinkles.

Finally, each guest received an art themed gift bag. Included in the bags were a box of Skittles, crayons, tub of Playdoh, and a watercolor set. This was another inexpensive and fun idea!

I created name tags by hand drawing paint palettes. I then wrote each name and used my daughters watercolor set to paint the paint splotches. I couldn't have been happier with the way they turned out! I tied them onto brown paper gift bags using ribbon of all the different colors of the rainbow.

We were supposed to do some pictures in front of this board, but time got away from us. I did have time before the party to snap some pics of the birthday girl. She is so much fun!