Every Child is an Artist–Pablo Picasso Quote & Yellow Antique Frame

I wanted my mantle to mimic the party so my husband and I removed the TV and I had a blank slate to work with. I found this cute saying by Pablo Picasso and wanted it on the mantle along with pictures of Abbie at different ages.

I designed how I wanted the quote to look in Photoshop elements and printed it out. I tried to find my transfer graphite paper but, to no luck. So, I improved (what every mom would do the night before the party). I rubbed my pencil on the back of the printed piece of paper.

Once the back was covered in graphite, I traced my design onto the canvas and then used a sharpie, following my pencil lines. My sharpie had a fine tip and a regular tip. I used both ends of my black sharpie.

I used my kids water color set to add the color splotches, which mimic a painter’s palette.

I kept adding more water color until I was happy with it.

I love how the water colors look on the canvas. So fun and colorful!

The other large frame on the mantle is a really cool antique frame I had found. It was an ugly gold color but, a little paint sure brought out it’s beauty!

A beautiful yellow paint. Sorry the pic isn’t great, it was probably about midnight when I was finishing this project for the party the next day.

The picture was printed at a local print shop and when I asked how much it would cost to mount it, they said $15 more dollars. Ummmm, no thank you, I will mount it myself. I stopped by the dollar store on my way home and bought foam board for$1.

I measured the picture, scored the foam board, snapped the one side and continued to use my box cutter to cut the other side of the foam board. I used spray adhesive I had on hand (which I’ve used for everything…foam to ottomans, pictures, ect. It has lasted forever! ) Then glued my picture down. Saved myself $14 dollars by using a little ingenuity!

All ready to glue down! Once it was glued, I popped it in the frame and it was ready for the party!

A few antique paint brushes, a few gumballs and the frames are complete with rainbow colors! I love this mantle so much that I’ve kept it up for the start of summer and am going to add in pic’s of my other kids so that it’s not just one child. Because I definitely don’t have just one!! LOL

The Picasso quote and the antique yellow picture frame finish off the mantle perfectly for a beautiful rainbow of colors!

Rainbow Cake Topper

The rainbow-cake topper was SO cute and the perfect way to top a beautiful, fun cake! The pom-poms are made from DMC floss. So, it’s super simple, inexpensive and has big impact.

Here’s some simple instructions on how to make this awesome rainbow-cake topper.

Supplies:

6 DMC floss: purple, red, orange, yellow, green and blue

2-straws or colored sticks

2-small clothes pins

bakers twine (about 18 inches)

Take the entire (yep, the whole thing) of DMC floss out of it’s wrapper.  Cut one string of floss off the end of the roll to use to tie the middle (about an 10 inch piece). Fold the rest of the floss into thirds.

Wrap the piece of cut thread around the middle and tie in a tight knot.

Use scissors to cut the loops.

Make pom-poms out of all six colors. (Each different color of DMC floss costs around 40 cents so, you can make this cake topper for $2.40)

Use your long thread piece that you used to tie the middle of the pom-pom, to tie each pom-pom to the baker’s twine. Now use a needle to punch holes in the top of the straws and thread the bakers twine through the hole. I tied the bakers twine into a knot around each straw so it wouldn’t slip or droop down.

Use clothes pins to add a decorative touch to the straws so it looks like the pom-poms have been clothes-pinned onto the straw. The last thing to do (and the most fun) is pushing the straws into the cake to be the perfect cake topper!

Best rainbow cake topper (and cheap too)!

Abbie’s Art Birthday Party

This was one of my favorite parties to plan….EVER!! The color combination was SO bright and fun! I am so excited to finally show everyone Abbie’s 8 year olds birthday party!!

Happy Art Birthday Party Invitation!!

The insert of the Art Party Invitation  was removable so that the Mom’s could put the invitation on the fridge and the girls could use the water color box to paint with. The water color boxes are $0.95 each at Target. So it cost ten dollars to do ten custom invitations, I printed out the insert on my home printer. One of the girls invited used her water colors to paint a picture for the top of Abbie’s present, SO SWEET!

 

I had to do a lot of prep before the party. I started planning two months in advance because I could save a lot of money by doing everything myself. Like: sew eleven aprons, stop every day at Hobby Lobby on your way home from work to pick up more canvas’ with another coupon, bake cookies, paint frames, paint party signs, ect. LOL The best part about planning the party was that I did it with my sister, Nichole in Pennsylvania (over the phone and computer, of course!). She and I even shared a secret pinterest board so we could plan together. She did an art party for her daughter in February and I got to benefit from having my daughter’s party in April! Shout out to you Nichole!! The party turned out awesome! Nichole, I wish you could have come in person to help me, maybe I wouldn’t have been up so late the night before the party finishing projects. LOL

As each girl arrived, they chose one of the aprons that I had sewn for the party.

The mom’s helped their daughter’s tie on their aprons. Every apron was a different color with different color on the edging. My daughter chose all the color combinations as we hung out in the studio as I would sew them. Great memories with my daughter!

Each Girl had an apron (their party favor), a canvas, three paint brushes and an artist’s palette. The girls were so excited as soon as they came in the door! The sign outside could have helped too! I used this cool old door I picked up at a flea market to hold the hand-painted sign complete with a bundle of balloons! Welcome to the party!

Once all the girls had arrived, I added six colors of paint and the girls started painting.

 

The food table was complete with edible artists’ paint brushes! Each rice-krispies bar had a craft stick inserted and the end dipped in colored chocolate. I bought red because I knew it was a hard color to tint. The red edible paint brushes turned out awesome! So yummy! I bought white chocolate with the intent to color it with other colors. It didn’t work too well. Note to anyone that tries these: buy the other colors, chocolate is hard to tint other colors. The chocolate is supposed to drip down so it looks like paint but, if you use colored chocolate, it doesn’t stay the same consistency and isn’t drippy. Thus you lose the dripping paint brush look. Just buy the colored chocolate! LOL

Painter’s Palette Sugar cookies! These turned out awesome! Worth the time to pipe the cookies! The six colors are beautiful! Plus these cookies are the yummiest!

and paint chips!  LOL

Lunch was a starving artist’ sandwich, paint chips, rainbow fruit, painter’s palette and paintbrush! It was a huge hit!!

The food was set up in tiers. The lower level (on an antique reception desk) had the food that needed to be easy to reach. The upper tier flowed with rainbow, chevron material cleverly covered in clear plastic that boasted the cake and paintbrushes. The food area was complete with a free-handed chalkboard birthday sign.

After some painting, Pictionary, presents and playing, it was time to cut the cake!!!

The outside polka dot was cute but, the inside is my favorite! Rainbow layered cake!

When the first slice of cake came out, it was SO awesome to watch eleven girl’s eyes get as big as sand dollars! The squeals of delight was worth the surprise!!  It was priceless!

The cake topper was really fun and easy to make. I will post a tutorial soon! My friend Emalee did the cake because I knew I wouldn’t have time to do it and do the cookies too! I knew exactly what I wanted! A six layered-rainbow cake and she did an amazing job! She even made up a marshmallow fondant-like polka-dots so they would taste good.

The cake was rainbow awesomeness!

The Mantle all decorated for the party! The old frames came out beautiful, all painted yellow for the party!!

The “Every child is an artist” - Pablo Picasso was the perfect saying to have on the mantle. I will share a tutorial soon on how I made it. The pictures were of my daughter through the years up until now! The gumballs even mimic the rainbow. The gumballs were in my sister’s jars for her party and then she shared them. Oh yeah! She bagged them up and shipped them to me with the rainbow chevron material that I couldn’t ever find at my Hobby Lobby (where she bought the material). So, she was kind enough to share some of the items I couldn’t find. They helped make the party awesome! Thanks Sis!

The chevron rainbow fabric sets such an awesome “tone” for the party! The table is so large and is such a presence in the room! The fabric is covered in clear plastic to save the fabric.

Happy Art Birthday Party Abbie!  Hope your 8th Birthday was the best!!