This Sunday is my daughter’s 3rd birthday. While April Fool’s Day suits her perfectly, Pamela’s daughter turned 3 last week and so it was only natural that we’d have a joint birthday party in between their birthdays since they are best buds. You may remember we did the same last year with a pink and purple extravaganza (their favorite colors, respectively). We figured this year is probably the last year that the girls won’t have a specific request for a theme for their birthday party, and since we’re on the verge of crossing the line into full on all princesses all the time, we decided we’d instead take advantage of the fact that they both L-O-V-E to paint and have an art p-ART-y!

On our shopping trip to Newburyport about two months back, we found bowl scrapers that bear a striking resemblance to artist’s palettes at a kitchen shop and scooped them up as we knew they would be perfect for our invitation. We printed out the text on various colors of colored card stock and cut each blurb out to look like a splat of paint. (If you missed our DIY Envelope Liner last month, this is what we used it for.) I love how they turned out!

To welcome everyone to the party, I put out our easel with balloons with a welcome message. I probably could have picked up a new one without the years of paint and chalk marks on it at IKEA since they’re only $15, but I like the authenticity of a well used easel.

Inside the table was set with a simple bunch of spring daffodils. I protected my dining room table with a painter’s drop cloth from Home Depot that had the look and feel of a heavy duty linen. And we scattered paint chips across the table in the pink, purple, and green color scheme we were using.

Each place was set with a palette shaped placemat that I cut out of chalkboard paper. I couldn’t find a template or actual palette to use as a base so I had to free-hand one and then use that as the template, and I think they turned out pretty well. Each place setting also had a personalized smock for each of our pint-sized guests.

We found the smocks (purple on one side and pink on the other just like the girls like) at Michaels for $1 each and then bought stencils and paint to monogram them. (Note: stenciling goes much faster and smoother with two people; one to hold down the stencil and one to do the painting.)

We knew that once the kids started arriving, the chaos would quickly follow so we pre-set the table with the fruits in veggies in nut cups as though each of them were a different paint color.

As the kids arrived, we guided them into the back yard to play while we prepared the main course of individual pizzas. The 4″ frozen ones from Trader Joe’s were perfect!

After lunch was finished we got ready to paint. Each child got their own canvas and we spread bowls of paint out across the table. While we intended to do this inside due to the forecast, the weather men were wrong (shocker!) and it turned out to be a beautiful day so we quickly reorganized and grabbed a folding table from the basement to put on the deck so the kids could paint outside which was perfect (and kept the mess outside!). In addition to the canvases, we also gave the kids pieces of cardboard (that we collected from shirts coming back from the dry cleaners) so that they could practice paint if they wanted to or just in case they wanted to do more than one painting.

The birthday girls were hard at work creating their masterpieces! And they were the last ones to finish up so I’m pretty sure we picked a theme that they were very happy with.

My son and his finished product.

All the masterpieces laying out in the sun to dry.

After they finished painting, it was cupcake time! We put the cupcakes on a wooden artist palette and then filled three smaller round palettes with various sprinkles and cupcake decorations so that the kids could create their own cupcake masterpiece.

Make a wish…or two!

Note that it was very important that we made sure every child had a cupcake in hand before we placed the sprinkles on the table. They couldn’t wait to dive in and start decorating and it would have quickly turned disastrous for this age group if we hadn’t done that!

And when it was time to go, we sent each guest home with the masterpieces they created at the party, their smocks, and another small canvas with easel, paint, and paint brush to thank them for p-ART-ying with us!

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