A Patriotic Painting Party

My daughter is an artist at heart.  She loves being creative, and it is one of the many attributes I love about her.  For her birthday party this year, she wanted to have a painting party, and she decided she wanted it to be with a patriotic theme.  So many great painting party items are available from Oriental Trading Co. that this party was easy to make great with their help. They really made my vision come alive, and I am so thankful to Oriental Trading Co. for helping me to add these special touches to my daughter's party!  This party was SO much fun to create, and the girls had so much fun painting.

Invite: When Ella decided she wanted a patriotic theme for her party, that obviously set my color scheme to red, white, and blue.  I designed the invite on PhotoShop. Once printed out, I glued this invite to a piece of card stock which added a backing and red border.

Entry decor: I painted this sign to place on an easel at the front door.  Instead of a canvas, I used a piece of wood to save money.  I painted it white and let my daughter paint the red and blue to match the invitation.

I went to Home Depot to get paint swatches in red, white, and blue to use for my daughter's name and used my Cricut to cut the letters on the swatches.  I painted the rest of the writing on the sign.

I used these same swatches to make a banner inside. I wanted to be able to use this banner for patriotic holidays, so I chose "celebrate" rather than "happy birthday".

I set up the painting party itself outside since I knew it might get a tad messy. I bought red plastic tablecloths for the same reason.

The canvases I purchased on sale at Aaron Bros.  I added alternating red or blue ribbon to the bottom of each canvas along with a tag I created that read "Time to Paint and Create".  The sets of paint brushes and the palettes, I got from Oriental Trading Co.  The brushes worked out great because they come in a set of 24 brushes of various sizes.  I got two sets for the 16 girls that attended the party, and that was perfect.  The mini palettes come in packs of a dozen.

Also from Oriental Trading Co, I got red and blue aprons to match the party colors.  These were a great fit for 8-year old kids and a thicker material so they will actually last.  I bought patriotic star fabric from Joanns, and my mom sewed a star and a waist sash/tie to each of them. (Thank you Mom!)

Didn't they turn out so cute?!  The aprons worked great and they were a nice take-home gift for the girls at the end of the party.

Once all the girls arrived, it was time to start painting!  Prior to the party, my daughter and I looked through images on the computer and found one that we thought would be easy enough to paint.  I also liked this choice because it is a painting that families might put up in their house to decorate for patriotic holidays rather than something that gets put up briefly and then thrown away.


I contacted one of my friends from high school who is an art teacher to see if she would be willing to help out in leading the girls through painting the art.  She was AMAZING!  She took the girls step-by-step through which brush to choose, how much color to use, everything!

The girls listened to her directions and really had a good time working on their paintings.

I love how each girl's artwork was different, but the same.  They each added their own creativity and flair to the piece.

Couldn't resist a group photo at the end!

Menu: What isn't more patriotic and American than hot dogs! We had hot dogs and chips along with red peppers since my daughter loves them.

I also made these patriotic jello cups.  I found the recipe here. They were easy to make the kids liked them.  My youngest daughter shared hers...

The kids loved this American flag fruit dish -- strawberries, blueberries and white yogurt pretzels.

This patriotic pasta dish was also yummy. I found the recipe here.

I made my daughter's cake to look like the painting that the girls were creating.  It was a bit harder to do with frosting and not paint, but I think it turned out great.

For the cupcakes, I made chocolate stars to decorate the top. The patriotic wrappers I found at Michaels.  My husband carved a piece of wood to look like a paint palette for me to display the cupcakes.

I made the inside of both the cake and cupcakes red, white, and blue.  This photo of my youngest is the only one I have that shows the inside of the cake.

Favor:  The girls were taking home the aprons and their artwork, but when I saw these cute paint buckets from Oriental Trading Co, I couldn't resist them!  They come 6 pieces in a set and they were the perfect size.  These buckets would be great for teacher appreciation week gifts or even as storage for art supplies in your home.

Inside, I made chocolate paint palette suckers and paint swatch notepads.  Oriental Trading Co sells paint palette suckers and swatch notepads as well, but since they were multicolored and didn't match the red, white, and blue color scheme, I decided to make my own.  To make the notepads, I cut the Home Depot paint swatches to be the size I wanted and then cut typing paper to fit inside.  I put all the notepads in a stack and used a vice to press them together.  Then I took Elmer's glue and glued the top (multiple layers of glue needed). Once dried, you just pull each notepad apart.  The pencils were from Oriental Trading, Co. I love that they are both a blue and a red pencil tip.  My daughter made a patriotic Rainbow Loom bracelet for each bucket as well.

 

 All in all in was a great party!  Thank you Oriental Trading Co for all the amazing items to make this party extra special for our daughter!