Happy Birthday- An Art Birthday Party

I'm still having problems getting pictures to post to my blog.  But I wanted to get this up now because it might be a while before I sort out the picture problem, as I'm not very computer savvy.  DS is coming home in August, so it might take til then, unless I suddenly find the right website to solve my problem.




Katrina had her 8th birthday party the day after her dance recital.  As I said before,  was supposed to be a simple party, but then I got excited after looking on the internet at other people's parties.  We made most of the decorations and the cake and goodies ourselves (usu. we buy the cake - I'd hate to make something and it either not turn out, or someone gets sick (I'm guessing OCD sneaks in there).
Bruce said he'd make the cake- a layered, multicoloured one.  I bought cookies and icing and nerd candies and made art palette cookies.  We made rice krispie squares and put icing on to look like paint brushes.  I bought pitchers and cups in 3 colours- pink blue and green at the dollar store and filled them with cranberry juice (pink), grape juice (blue) and apple juice (green).


I bought tissue paper and string and made green, pink purple and blue tassels hanging from the ceiling.  In the living room I cut orange, yellow and red tissue paper and folded them over the string into   triangles.  We made paint tubes from construction paper and had streamers coming out the opening of the tubes, to puddle on the floor below.  I took calendars of paintings by Monet, Van Gogh and Krieghoff , (which I already had ) tore them  and put them up in place of our pictures. I covered tables with coloured table cloths, put markers in containers in a row along one of the tables ready for the activity. I put a sign on a chair saying  Welcome to *** (address)  Art Gallery.  Open Sunday from   ***(time of party).  Special Guest Artists featured: *** and wrote down the names of the party guests.


We bought clear garbage bags as clothes- savers for the painting activities.




Activity 1:  Painting a Birdhouse.  Bird houses came from the dollar store, as did the paint palettes. We put the basic colours in the palette and by using white or black the kids could create their own shades.  Before the party DH spray painted all the houses so they would be white.
Activity 2: Shaving Cream Painting.  Idea from:  http://www.kidspot.com.au/kids-activities-and-games/art-activities+43/shaving-cream-painting+12123.htm.  This was a little messy but the kids enjoyed it.  Dried pictures went into their goody bags.  I showed them how it could be hung up in a frame.  We used food colour as the paint and rulers to wipe the shaving cream off the paper you put onto the painted shaving cream.  Cardboard isn't as flimsy, and wont rip the paperbut we used sketch book paper, a little stronger than regular computer paper.  We put the shaving cream onto a large piece of finger painting paper instead of in a pan.
Activity 3:  Marker Wheel Art:  Idea from: http://elementaryartfun.blogspot.ca/search/label/Coffee%20Filter%20Circles Making the circles was fun.  But there wasn't time at the end to use them to create pictures.  Art put into their goody bags when dried.
Game:  Draw a mustache on the Mona Lisa.  My husband got a picture of the Mona Lisa off the internet, and blew it up on  a colour photo copier at work.  Blind folded kids drew a mustache on the picture. 
Dress Up & Picture.  This was supposed to be a relay  race outside but it is black fly season and the bugs were bad, so we just took pictures of the kids dressed up as an artist:  smock (from dollar store),  artist hat (dollar store),  purple or red boa (dollar store) and a black mustache (made from construction paper) and holding a paint brush (from dollar store).  Originally the kids were to dress in the outfit and pick up a paint brush, run to a paint can (ice cream container covered by construction paper), drop it in, undress sit down as next person did it.  We were also running late so didn't do the relay.
Activity 4:  Origami.  Katrina is into origami and wanted to do some at her party so we found this  you tube channel:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcCS86eikJs.  Its fairly simple but I pre-folded many of the sheets so the kids could get an easy start- a straight fold is important.  We didn't get to putting the star together, so I gave out the website for the kids to do it at home.  They all were looking forward to the next activity so I didn't want to cancel this one to finish the origami.
Activity 5:   Picasso Pops.  Bruce and Katrina had tried this out before and she brought the results to school. So all the kids knew this was coming. Here are the instructions:  http://www.bhg.com/recipe/candy/picasso-pops/#comments
Mints turn out rather strong, so buy hard fruit flavoured candy.  Crush them ahead of time.


Cake and presents:  The parents were already starting to arrive.  The party  should have been 3 hours long, not 2 and a half hours.  The kids were thrilled with their suckers.


Goody Bags:  I bought brightly coloured gift bags and put in a cup- with-straw-attached of the same colour (both from the dollar store).  Because we didn't get to painting on the canvases I put them into the bag too (again from the dollar store).  Their birdhouse and finished art completed the bag.


I had a blast!  We had tried out most of the activities with Katrina beforehand, so she said she was bored.  She made a pretty birdhouse- so she wasn't all bored.




We still have most of the decorations up as they look too pretty to take down!