P&C Real Life Party: Art Birthday Party

My sweet daughter turned 9 last month. Nine. Years. Old. It seems like just yesterday I was planning her first birthday party - my first real party planning adventure. But, that's another story for another day.

Anyway, Autumn has been an artist since birth - I'm pretty sure it's in the genes. My mother is the director of the American Museum of Ceramic Art, she began her artistic career as a ceramicist just after I was born. Her parents, both extremely creative. My mom's sister - Aunt Janet - also an artist. See? in the genes I tell you.

So this year, when my daughter asked for her birthday party theme to be "all-things-Art", I was excited! Fun to plan, perfectly age appropriate, and lots of ways to save money!

Luckily for me, Autumn chose to do away with a traditional cake in favor of ice cream sundaes. We had a wide variety of toppings and sauces to put on top of plain vanilla or chocolate ice cream.

We also had some yummy cakeballs on hand, supplied by Terri's Party Treasures, served in artists palettes to match our theme.

That's my mom... the director of AMOCA giving the kids a little abstract art lesson. They painted with anything and everything I could think of, including straws and feathers.

And if that wasn't enough, Autumn herself put together a Photo Booth area that she and her friends used to take pictures of each other. Is she my kid or what?

Happy Birthday to my baby, ahem, I mean big girl?

Is your Birthday Child dreaming of an Art Party? How about a Printable Art Party! This Spectacular paper printable set comes complete with everything you see in these photos, and more! It includes:

Invitation (fits A6 envelope) +
Address Labels +
Thank You Note
Birthday Gift Log
Jar Labels +
Candy Buffet Labels +
Mini Popcorn Boxes
2” and 3” party rounds +
Pennant Banner +
Table Tents +
Front Door Sign +
Straw Markers

All the items listed with a + sign can be easily personalized -by you- using nothing more than adobe acrobat reader (free from adobe.com).

Now here is the best part - we are now offering an Art Party Guide so that you can easily throw this party with all of our tips and tricks. With lists and schedules and plenty of instruction, the printable Art Party Guide will help ensure your success with an Art Party of your own.

One last thing.... and its a good one... included in the Art Party Guide package is the beautiful Art Supply Posters that you can upload to your favorite photo printing website and hang for added themed decoration.

So? What do you think? Stop by Paper & Cake to purchase the Art Party Printable collection and the printable Art Party Guide (a new website is under construction) your artist will thank you!

SPECIAL THANKS.... to my sister Missy of Missy Marie Photography for taking ALL of the photos at the party, to Terri of Terri's Party Treasures for the yummy rainbow cakeballs and lastly to Jenn at Hostess with the Mostess for featuring this party on her fabulous blog.

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Guest {Cousin} Krista: Dinosaur Party

 Happy Birthday Boy with his crown

As soon as I saw Paper & Cake's dinosaur party, I knew I had to have it for my son's 5th birthday party. I love the colors, and the dinosaurs are perfect!


The Invitation:

Here's the invitation (totally customizable so you don't even have to write in the information...just type it in once and you're set!) I found these envelopes with a set of stationary at - $10 for 100 flat cards and envelopes in assorted colors. I figured I would use the fun envelopes in the future, and I like to have flat cards around to use for other crafts, so I'm sure it will come in handy.


The Decorations:

Customizable banner

I added streamers for a little something extra (about $1 per roll at Party City). Then we added balloons in two shades of green.

Door Sign

The Activities:

As the kids were arriving, I put out paper lunch bags and a bucket each of markers and dinosaur foam stickers. Each child decorated their treat bag with their name and some dinos. I then stuffed these with a sheet of dinosaur stickers, a few dinosaur tattoos, and some fruit snacks. (I added a couple of plastic dinosaurs after we did our fossil activity as well.)

After they decorated their bags, I took photos in our little dinosaur photo booth! We had dinosaurs on sticks, hats, magnifying glasses, and mustaches. I also borrowed a large dinosaur toy from a friend and hung up a sandy colored backdrop.

Then the kids all sat at the table and we made fossils! A good friend of mine who teaches kindergarten gave me the idea and it was a huge hit!!

Materials: crayola model magic clay, a pail of plastic dinosaurs, a pail of rocks, some plastic shells/shell-shaped beads, a square of cardboard for each child, and some watered-down brown tempera paint and a brush.

Each child got a ball of clay that they flattened onto their cardboard. Then they press dinosaurs, shells, rocks, etc into the clay leaving an imprint. once they finish then they painted it with the brown wash to make it stand out a little bit. The kids loved it, and my mother-in-law (a former art teacher) did a great job telling them what fossils are and helping the kids while I made lunch.

The Food:
For lunch, I served dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets (from costco), apple slices for herbivores, and dinosaur bones (pretzels). I loved using the treat bag toppers as food labels! (I used them on the bags too, but forgot to take a picture, of course!)

The kids loved that their juice boxes had dinosaurs on them!

After lunch, we did a T. Rex excavation using plastic sand molds.  I had originally planned to have the party outside, but rain prevented that. I traced the molds onto a piece of poster board, and  ended up hiding the bones in my living room before the kids got there. I showed them the picture, told them that they were paleontologists looking for dinosaur bones, and they went hunting. They placed the bones on the board once they found them. They loved it!


The Game:

Finally, we played pin-the-horn on the triceratops. You can buy this game, but since my mother-in-law is so talented I asked her if she could paint a triceratops. I was in awe of what she created! I traced the horn onto some white cardstock for the kids' to play. They were so funny. And I'm hanging that triceratops in my son's room now!


The Wrap up:

Finally, it was cupcake time! Looks like they had fun!

There are so many game/activity options for a dinosaur-themed party for almost any age - I liked this one and this one. Have fun partying!

Discover more about Krista, at Krista Lucas Photography

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How To: Painted Cookies

Easy and artistic, "painted cookies" are a big hit in our house (even if the Christmas cookie cutters are still in the attic). For this batch, the kids chose their favorite animal shaped cutters, and even mixed up a batch of black frosting for a realistic touch.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups butter, softened
• 2 cups white sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 5 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt

Directions
1. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

Chill for 1 to 2 hours
OR
Take the freshly made dough and place a chunck between two sheets of parchment paper. Roll it out to the desired thickness then place the dough and paper on a cookie sheet and pop it into the refrigerator. Continue rolling out your dough between sheets of paper until you have used it all. By the time you are finished, the first batch will be completely chilled and ready to cut. Re-roll leftover dough and repeat the process!

Paint
Mix up some milk, powdered sugar, and a bit of food coloring to the consistency of paint. Use a new or very clean paint brush to paint on the frosting. Add sprinkles if necessary.

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Paper Gingerbread House

I couldn't help myself. My daughter asked me if we could make one - and once I started I couldn't stop! Even my mom worked on it, see the smoke coming out of the chimney? All her idea. Can you even stand it?

Even if you are thinking, "what if it's too complicated?" it's not. Just print out the template for the house, and glue it to a cut open brown paper bag - I used one from Trader Joes. Cut, score, fold, tape. All the little bits and pieces - candy roof, trees, doors and windows - are really fun to work on assembling, do this together with the kids. My daughter had a blast! See those beads? They were her idea, and she even glued them all on.

Everything you see on the house is included in the printable pdf, ready to go for a rainy day, a snowy day, even for Christmas eve to entertain the guests while they wait for presents.

Printable Paper Gingerbread House

Gingerbread House template
Doors and Windows
Chimney and Smoke
Candy Trees
Wreath
Tiny Holiday Signs
Snow
Candy Cane Picket Fence
Peppermint Candy Roof decor
House Columns
Full Patterned sheet
Step by Step instructions

The glitter, beads and imagination are all up to you.

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Guest {Cousin} Krista: Birthday in the Park

For my son's second birthday we decided to hold his party at a local park - there are two play structures (one geared toward smaller kids and one for the bigger ones), lots of grass to run in, and a nice covered area with picnic tables. I also love that a park party is easy to clean up, and can be held rather inexpensively!

 
Toys we brought: buckets/shovels/trucks to play with in the sand and some soccer balls and frisbees.

Food: pizza, goldfish crackers, chips/salsa, soda, juice and cupcakes

Activities: the park! I also bought some beads on clearance at Michael's (50 cents for a package, and I bought 8 packages) and found some ribbon in the dollar section at Target for the kids to make necklaces if they wanted to.

Favors: I found these cute little pails in Target's dollar section on clearance - so they were 50 cents each! I added a little package of fruit snacks, some small bubbles (from Party City), and a squirt toy ($1 for 5 in Target's dollar section). The favors cost me about $1 per child.

Decorations: I do so love Paper & Cake's printable banners and cupcake picks. Add some balloons, colored table cloths and crepe paper and the park looks festive! I also made two cupcake stands since I didn't want to drag my nice glass one to the park - I found some plates and bowls ($2 for 4 of each) and hot glued an upside-down bowl to the plate. Easy and cheap! I also found the little plastic tubs for the kids' drinks in the Target dollar section. I tend to wander through there each time I go to Target, just in case they have something I can use for a future party.

The birthday boy's shirt came from a friend who custom made it.

Discover more about Krista, at Krista Lucas Photography.

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P&C on Television

Last week, we had the opportunity to work with Amy Nichols a FABULOUS event planner. She was working on a segment for CBS5 in San Francisco, and asked us for some Pizza Party printables. Did I mention this was for television?

Anyway, here is some what she had to say:

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It is time for a make your own pizza party! This past Saturday, I had the honor of appearing on the CBS5 Eyewitness Morning news in San Francisco to present an idea on an economical kid's birthday party. For the segment, I decided to do a pizza party. My thought was it was good for kids of all ages, as parents can tailor the level of involvement based on the child's age. In addition, rather than having a ton of party games that can get competitive, I came up with activities that would suit kids of multiple ages playing together.

So let's get started with the ideas!

I suggested getting inexpensive aprons from Michaels and letting the kids decorate their aprons before they got started with assembling pizzas. I'd suggest using the craft line from Martha Stewart Crafts or iron-on transfers from Michaels (of course with adult supervision).

It's time to make some pizzas! It is a good idea to start with a pizza peel, especially if you're making several pizzas at the same time. I like this one from Williams-Sonoma, and its also eco-friendly.

To make the assembly part more fun for kids, I love these decor elements from Paper & Cake. I chose to use their tomato sauce label (love it!) and also their small mise-en-place labels for the ingredients. There are many more options from this line, and the collection is now available in Paper and Cake's etsy store!

 

A party wouldn't be complete without dessert, right? Well no kid is going to opt for fruit instead of a birthday cake, but that doesn't mean you can't make a fruit pizza to offer the kids too. The recipe for this fruit pizza comes from San Francisco Entertains, the new cookbook from the Junior League of San Francisco. The book will be available 10/20 and can be purchased here.

You can't let your guests leave empty-handed, so I suggest sending them home with these adorable pizza cookies -- in both "slices" and "whole pie" shapes. Too cute!  These are from Little Laura's Sweets. Laura will soon be launching her new line, Da*Lish. The cookies are topped with favor labels from Paper & Cake as well.

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You can see the tv segment here, and be SURE to check out Amy's blog for the rest of the Pizza Party segment details, and to leave comments - we love comments!

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Rainy Day Activity

What do you get when you cross a brand new "Cakelet" cake pan from Williams Sonoma, and a Cookie and Cupcake Decorating set from Kuhn Rikon with an entire day spent inside because of rain?

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Well obviously, you get 4 super happy and super SUGAR energized kids!

The cake pan was a Christmas gift, and I used spray Pam with flour to ensure my box-of-cake mix didn't stick. One box would have made a pan's worth (6 cakelets) plus at least one single cake (had I not thrown out the rest of the batter). The spray Pam with flour is a DREAM and made those cakes just glide out of the pan.

For frosting, I made a double batch of royal icing - and separated it into 4 smaller batches to color with neon food coloring. I am still trying to figure out the "trick" to getting the icing into the little squeeze bottles - let me know if you have any tips for me - it is just plain messy getting them filled.

And lastly, have the vacuum cleaner nearby and plugged in, those sprinkles get everywhere!

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