Art Party: Grace is 7!

So every year as September 19th is approaching I tell myself we're going to do something simple for my little girl's birthday. Well, when you have a daughter like Grace nothing is simple. She is so creative and certainly knows what she wants. Each year she comes up with a theme (in July!!) of what she would like for her birthday. My only leverage is that if I'm able to pull off the party she wants at home - that's what we'll do.

My mom always threw my birthday party at my house growing up and it was one of the best memories I have as a kid. Although I love the ease of having it somewhere else - no prep work, no additional hired help, no clean up, no goody bags, no staying up late to ice cupcakes at 12 am.  It must be something in me I crave, like an upcoming deadline at work (see, I'm a SAHM so this is my job and these are my type of deadlines). One drawback I will mention when having it at home is having to limit the number of friends due to space and help/assistance issues. You never want to bite off more than you can chew and at home you need to make sure you have a good handle on things so no kid is feeling left out. I tried to limit it to 10 kids total, but by the time we including the birthday girl and her siblings we were up to 14...yes, fourteen, Yikes!

Anyway, this year Grace wanted to do something with Art. She loves Art & Horses at this point - her two loves as she would say. So with the help of Google, Pinterest, & the craft store we came up with Grace's Birthday Theme! The kids will paint their own canvas, decorate their own cupcakes, and of course have alot of fun. Genius!

I set up the party in two 1 hour shifts - first shift was Canvas Painting where each girl got a blank canvas and with the help of Crayola Neon Washable Paint was able to make a masterpiece to take home. They seemed to really enjoy creating their own personalized take-a-away. After everyone was done the girls went outside to play (shift change) to play, jump on a moon bounce, and make silly faces in a characterture drawing made with love by myself and my artistic sister, Kelsey (shout out). Must be where Grace gets her crafty side from :)

While the girls were outside tiring themselves out on this gorgeous day I was changing the table into shift #2- Cupcake Decorating. When discussing this idea with mommy friends that I was going to do this I was given a fun idea to use painters palette to serve the cupcakes on. Each girl sat down to their very own cupcake decorating station with endless options of candy, sprinkles, icing, and of course laughter to see who could build the biggest cupcake. It was adorable! One girl even tried to shove the entire thing in her mouth (although not recommended, it was pretty funny). And all mommy cared about was that Grace was having a good time with her friends. And she was!

Alongside a goody bag of silly string and a Crayola Paint Palette, each girl was sent home with their very own canvas - painted by them. Party was a success and Grace felt like a very lucky girl.

Happy birthday sweet girl! You'll always be my first baby and its a blessing to see you grow. I am super proud of you and who you have become. Love you to pieces! xoxo