The Paint Party

I've found I'm really great at replicating other people's creativity. 

The invitation

The decor

I loved using paint chips for decoration - its free! I did feel a little sneaky grabbing handfuls of paint chips at Lowe's and WalMart though. Hope no one was looking!

For a gathering activity the kids blew colorful bubbles onto the "Celebr8" sign. I just added food coloring to bubble solution. Some of the colors worked better than others. The kids had fun doing it, but by the end of the party you could hardly see any color on the poster.

The painting

I wanted the kids to be able to make something special on canvas to take home and hang in their rooms.

I wasn't sure how long the painting activity would take. Some of the kids were done fairly quickly and others really took their time. That made it hard to clean up and switch to the next thing. But the first ones done just played and ran around, so it wasn't too big a deal. 

I don't think our swing set had seen so much action. Brian had to anchor it in place.

The cake

The cake was fun to make. I did colorful splotches of batter on the cupcake and made sugar cookie palettes for the topper. The mini m&m's really added the perfect touch. Then I found a cupcake wrapper template and a paint splatter image to use for it. Everything was tasty! (except for the colorful sherbet cups that had melted - but the kids drank them anyway).

The favors

I was thinking of getting empty silver paint cans for the kids, but they were too expensive. I think this was still pretty fun, especially the candy buttons - do you remember those? I had to order them online, but it was fun to introduce the kids to something I had when I was a little.

My favorite was the chocolate dipped rice krispy treats. Such a clever thing!

I love all the great party ideas there are online!