When my middle son requested yet another art party, I knew I was going to have to get a bit creative. We had been considering the concept of one of those adult painting classes, but our local studios are a fortune to rent for a party.
After some thinking, I figured that maybe I could pull this off on my own…for less…a LOT less. We found a great space at our local Michael’s Arts and Crafts store and threw our own bash for a sixth of the price. Looking to host your own canvas party? You are in the right place for plenty of fresh ideas!
This is the room at Michaels. It was large enough to fit 18 5 year olds and about half of their parents. Michaels provided aprons for each of the kids, which was great because, well, kids are messy. Even though we warned parents that kids should wear old clothes, I would have hated to have ruined items with the acrylic paint.
On the party invite, parents noted which of the 4 themes that the kids would like to paint. With my Silhouette Cameo, I cut scrap vinyl to adhere to the store bought canvases.
As a tip, we bought the 20 for $40 pack of 11 by 14 canvases at another big box craft store and the canvases has a coating on them that was a little different than the good quality canvases we typically work with. Therefore, I needed Oracal 651 to make it stick with my intricate designs. If you do not have a cutting machine, painter’s tape initials are another easy to implement design idea.
Before the party, we divided the paint into small condiment cups. Each child chose two colors as they entered the party.
We set up each child’s place with the canvas, design (which we would peel off later), 2 foam brushes, and their paint.
The beauty of this project is that kids need no art skills to make a cute canvas. They just need to cover their entire canvas with paint! We used acrylic paint for this project to ensure it would stick well to the canvas.
Looks like fun, right?
As we had kids start on the next project, I walked around with tweezers and peeled off the stencil designs. Beneath the messy paint, a design emerged in white.
Each canvas turned out very different – but the kids were so proud!
We also played color bingo. Our calling cards were the big color circles that we put up on the white board with a magnet as we “drew” the colors. There were lots of prizes and every child was a winner!
We put Hubs to work as an easel while we called the colors.
Kids put colored tokens on their bingo boards that we created for the party as we called the colors. Four across won!
The kids loved choosing colorful prizes.
The activity also reinforced color knowledge and counting.
As part of the party, we also made these white board mosaics. We attached dry erase paper to a piece of scrapbook paper and had the kids glue confetti to the outside to decorate. A ribbon at the bottom held a Crayola dry erase marker for each child. We used glue sticks for this project to help the confetti dry faster, but we really should have used white glue – it rained confetti for a few days in my house!
Our last activity had kids design their own 28 piece puzzles. We used a bath caddy to corral the dot markers and brush markers that the kids could use. Both dried quickly and did not require good fine motor skills to use correctly. With older kids, I might use Sharpies.
We taped the back of the blank puzzles with painters’ tape so that the puzzles did not fall apart on the kids as they colored.
Cupcakes were simple – vanilla cupcakes with sprinkles and a lollipop on top! His favorite part was when our party helper announced to the entire store over the loudspeaker, “Attention Michael’s shoppers….” and encouraged the customers to wish him a very happy birthday. He felt so special!
We made a little pocket on the front of their favor bags where we placed an assortment of brushes, pencils and markers.
Inside the bags, the children found a jar to hold their puzzle…
and a game we made to help them practice counting and colors.
We added a clear pocket on the back of the laminated game to keep all the pieces in place.
We also cut up colorful Scratch Art paper and make them into little books for the kids.
When the kids draw in their books with the wooden tool, a rainbow of colors will appear!
Michaels also provided a bag which all of the kids at the party signed – my son loves it as a reminder of a fun party! I would definitely recommend Michael’s for a fun and affordable party!
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