“Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.”
– Chili Davis
I recently realized (while I was perusing photos from last year) that I had yet to share a post about our little nugget’s third birthday party. It was a fabulous day spent with close family and friends, an abundance of colorful paint, an array of delicious treats, and loads of smiles and laughter. Our daughter’s third birthday party was an awesome Art Party!
I absolutely loved throwing this art party for our little girl. I loved putting together all of the colorful decorations, baking a paint palette birthday cake, prepping art-themed treats and snacks, putting together creative party favors, and planning fun, paint-filled activities for all of the kiddos!
Since it was such a smashing success, I figured I would share all of the details with you…in case any of you are thinking about throwing your own little Picasso an art party in the future. Now I know some of you may be thinking that you would never dare host a kid’s art party…just think of the mess – splattered paint everywhere you look. But that’s why they make washable paint and tablecloths…and that’s why we hosted our party outside, in our backyard.
Besides…kids love to get messy! Almost as much as they love having a creative and artistic outlet. And as a parent, I love watching my daughter’s creativity and imagination come to life through artistic expression…just as long as I can wash off any excess art materials that missed the canvas. π
Art Party Decorations
I found an abundance of art-themed party decorations at local craft stores and online. Everything from paint-themed birthday banners and paint splatter hanging decals, to paint palette paper plates and paintbrush napkins. I picked up some empty paint cans, and some cute little paint buckets that I used to hold noise-makers and paint palette lollipops.
I made sure to turn our chalkboard garage door into a fun, paint-splattered masterpiece, featuring a large #3. And we crafted another colorful #3 out of paint sample swatches, that we snagged from Home Depot.
And while I loved all of our art party decorations, my absolute favorite turned out to be the poured paint tablecloths at our beverage station! They added that little extra punch of color and pizzazz to the party decor. And they were pretty easy to put together. All it took was punching a couple of small holes into the bottom of two empty paint cans, and tying the ends of the tablecloths inside with a piece of fishing line.
Art Party Food
It’s not a birthday without birthday cake…and it seemed only fitting to bake a paint palette cake for our art party! While it was not my best cake-frosting job, I’m still very happy with how this cake turned out. It’s just two 9-inch round chocolate cakes, that I stacked and then carved into a paint palette shape. Once carved, it was completely covered in vanilla frosting, and then decorated with colorful blobs of frosting and a pretzel rod paintbrush!
I made additional pretzel rod paintbrushes with the leftover colored frosting, and placed them on display in a couple of clear paint cans. These little paintbrush treats were the fan-favorites amongst the toddler age group!
The other sweet treats consisted of Rice Krispies Treat paintbrushes (dripped in various colors of white chocolate), and paint-splattered popcorn (also utilizing the colored white chocolate)!
We rounded the sweets out with some delicious rainbow fruit kabobs, a meat & cheese tray, watermelon paintbrushes (also another crowd-pleaser), chips & salsa & guacamole, and some sausage cheddar bites.
Oh…and how could I forget these cute paint palette caprese skewers? A cherry tomato, a basil leaf, and a mozzarella pearl…all drizzled with a bit of balsalmic – Yum!
Art Party Favors
Ok…how adorable are these art party favors? They just might be the best party favor that I’ve ever put together – and they were so easy to make! I purchased a pack of canvases at a local craft store and paired them with small colorful art aprons, sets of acrylic paint pots, paintbrushes, and paint palette lollipops.
To make each gift a little more personal, I placed a sticker containing the first letter of each of our little guest’s names, in the center of their respective canvases. The best part about these fantastic art party favors is that they doubled as a party activity!
Art Party Fun & Activities
We kicked off the party by allowing all of our guests to paint their special party favor canvases (the birthday girl received a favor too). It was so much fun to watch each child create their very own masterpiece! And once their paintings were complete, we removed the letter stickers to reveal their initialed works of art, that they could take home and hang on display.
When the canvas painting was complete, it was time to get a little messy with some stomp painting! We rolled out a large piece of white craft paper and covered it with dollops of paint. On each dollop of paint, we gently placed a round cotton pad…hiding the paint underneath. The kiddos loved stomping on all of the cotton pads, causing the paint to squirt out from underneath! π We ended up with some very messy feet and toes, but we simply grabbed a tub of water and a beach towel, and cleaned them right up.
The messy painting didn’t stop there…next up was some paint-popper painting! This painting activity is definitely a hit with the little ones. I had made an array of paint poppers out of empty toilet paper tubes. I covered each tube in colorful polka-dot paper. I then tied a handful of empty balloons, and cut each of them in half. Using the tied halves of each balloon, I carefully wrapped the balloons around one end of each toilet paper tube (making the balloons taut) and secured them with tape. When it was time to paint, we simply poured washable paint into each popper, and rolled out another large sheet of white craft paper. We handed the poppers to the kiddos and instructed them to point the poppers down at the paper, before pulling the balloon knots back. When they released the balloons, paint splattered all over the craft paper. My little nugget and I had previously experimented with this painting technique, thus we created the paint-splattered birthday balloons (that I added colorful ribbon to) to hang up as a party decoration.
We also set out an array of sidewalk chalk to provide the kiddos with a different artistic outlet. π
It was the perfect day, and the perfect party! And it was most likely the last of our daughter’s birthday parties where I will get to select the party theme. I can’t believe that we will be celebrating the big #4 in just a few short months. Eeek! I’m looking forward to hearing our little girl’s vision for her next birthday…she has already been throwing out numerous party ideas. π But for now, it’s still…YIPPEE FOR 3!
If you would like to see our previous birthday party adventures, make sure to check out our Beach-Themed Second BirthdayΒ post, and our First Birthday Fun post!
