Painting Party

My girlfriends and I have gotten together recently to paint canvases together, so when I was stuck on a monthly dinner theme for this month, one of my friends suggested a Painting Party.  With only a day and half to prep for this dinner, I immediately got working.  I wanted to make sure I didn't repeat ideas from my daughter's art themed birthday party (see post here), so I tried to come up with all new ideas.

Invite:  I had a bit of a challenge with the wording of my invite because we weren't actually going to paint at this painting party!  I decided on the phrase, "Come wet your palette" since this was specifically a dinner party.

Decor:  I set up an easel outside with a canvas I painted with the title of our party (sorry, no photo). Inside I used a white tablecloth, colorful plates, mason jars, and various other paint inspired items.  I cut paint splatters out of colorful card stock and set them in between the centerpieces.

My main centerpiece was a vase I made using paintbrushes and a bouquet of colorful flowers.  I bought the vase at the Dollar Tree and the brushes at Michaels.  I painted the wooden handles to add a pop of color and hot glued them to the vase. 

I also bought mini paint cans at Lowes and filled them with paintbrushes and sponges. I cut card stock to look like paint on the can.  From the ceiling and on my side table, I strung rainbow circle garlands made of felt and stitched together.

On a side table I set these wooden drawing figures.  I borrowed these from the art teacher at school.

To hold the silverware, I cut slits in paint swatches from Home Depot (the ones at Lowes were not big enough).  Simple and FREE!

As place cards, I bought mini canvases and easels from a local art store.  On each canvas I painted wooden alphabet letters that matched the first initial of each guest. I thought about having the girls paint these canvases as they waited for the food to be ready, but decided against it in favor of just letting the guests relax and chat.

I created painting themed wine labels on Photo Shop calling the wine "Creative Juices."  I put a red paintbrush on the red wine label and a gold one on the chardonnay.

Menu: I like my menu to match the theme as well, but this was a challenge with this theme.  At first, I thought about finding famous paintings with food in them and crafting my menu that way.  I decided instead to focus on colors and the artist's palette.

I started with a green salad with colorful veggies...red tomatoes, orange peppers, yellow corn, green cucumbers, and purple cabbage.

The main course was homemade pizza.  I shaped the dough and placed the toppings in ramekins to look like an artist's palette. I did two big pizzas, but you could do individual pizzas if you have room in your oven to cook them all.  I made my dough from scratch, but you could use a store-bought dough.

For dessert, I made cake pops and placed them on plastic palettes I purchased at an art supply store. I made 4 cake pops for each guest. I had these set out on my wine/favor table, so it also added themed decor to the party.

Favor:  I created a fun tag using the phrase "Thank HUE from the bottom of my heART".  I designed it in PhotoShop and adhered it to swatches from Lowes. I didn't have time to order a paint brush cookie cutter online and the local cake shops didn't have one, so I ended up free handing the cookie using a image from Google as a template. I used a toothpick to create the lines on the grey frosting of the brush to make it look more like a paintbrush.

The Painting Party was another great time with friends.  It makes me anticipate the next time we get together to actually paint.

 If you like any of these ideas, please comment below!  Would love to hear from my readers.  If you would like any of the templates, let me know.