Arty Party

For my daughter's seventh birthday party, we had an arty party. It was a fun and easy party to arrange.

The invites were in the shape of artist's palettes with blobs of paint. The invite read:

Drawing pencils and brushes, stretched canvasses and inks. It's that time of year for Tate's party, methinks! A party more arty than any you've seen, come paint up a storm in red, orange and green! Wear clothing your mom won't mind getting dirty. Remember your swimsuit and towel! (and your shirty).

My daughter drew a welcome note on her stand-up blackboard easel which we put at the door. It welcomed everyone to her art gallery and had the party times for those parents who were dropping kids off.

When the kids arrived we had a treasure hunt for them to find their hidden canvasses, pencils and sharpeners in the garden. When everyone had found their supplies, they settled down to designing their masterpieces. I had set up a few still life subjects around the art tables (the usual bowl of fruit/ bunch of flowers), but the kids were very imaginative with ideas of their own!

While they were painting I got everyone to guess how many colourful jellybeans were in a glass jar - the closest guess won the jar to take home.

We hired an inflatable slip 'n slide which was the perfect thing for the budding artists to rinse off on once they had finished their paintings.

The birthday cake was in the shape of an artist's palette. It was covered in white plastic icing and had seven blobs of different coloured icing smudged on the top. I also made multi-coloured cupcakes (one for each child) which I iced in white and sprinkled with rainbow vermicelli. I found some crayon-shaped candles which complimented the cake perfectly.

The party packs had the usual assortment of party sweets, plus a few extra surprises. I found packs of candy crayons at a speciality baking store which I added to the packs. I also made covers for the fruit juice boxes which were labelled "Creative Juices".

Before the guests left, I had a large painter's easel set up to display their works of art. Each child had a turn to don a large white painter's smock and beret with their painting and an ENORMOUS paintbrush on display for a photo-op. We used these proud pictures in our thank-you messages sent to all the aspiring artists. Each child took their completed canvas, pencils, sharpeners and party packs home with them.

Jessica - Durbanville