|

The Rainbow Art Party

Rainbow Art Party: DIY rainbow art party decorations, 7 art acitiviy stations for guests, and rainbow art themd party foods.Rainbow Art Party Decorations: Rainbow paper lanterns, rainbow candles, a rainbow cake of art supplies and a paint chip birthday banner are just some of the fun ideas!

Last week my oldest daughter, Paige, turned nine. Nine, as in almost ten…where does the time go? She wanted a Rainbow Art Party, and today we’re sharing all the fun details of the decorations, the art activities, and the rainbow art themed food.

The Invitations

I did a little photo shoot with her one day to make our cute party invitations. Then I just printed them on the computer. She really loved them.

Rainbow Art Party invitations



I thought I’d start out by sharing all the pretty decorations with you.  

You can find all the Rainbow Art Party Activities here.  And all the Rainbow Art Party themed foods here.

My very, very, very favourite decorations were the rainbow paper lanterns and rainbow flowers.

Outdoor Rainbow Art Party Decorations

rainbow paper lanterns

I collected paper lanterns from all over in all shapes and sizes for weeks and weeks. We hung them all in a line, in traditional rainbow order. They looked so, so pretty hanging on our pergola.

Rainbow paper lanterns



I always love to do special flowers for a party, and came up with the idea of doing one pretty mason jar for each colour of the rainbow and lining them up in the same rainbow order.

Rainbow flower arrangement

All the flowers are pretty much from my mom’s garden, with the exception of the green mums that I picked up at the store. I love how it turned out.

Rainbow flower arrangement

Using different sized mason jars as vases was the perfect way to accommodate flowers of all different sizes.

diy Rainbow bunting



We planned to have the art activities outside in the yard when guests first arrived at the party, and then move into the house where it was cooler for the food. I wanted to add a little rainbow to the play structure so we made a simple rainbow bunting.

To make the rainbow bunting I used some twine and hot glued on some scrap fabric flags in our rainbow colours.

Rainbow Art Party Decorations

We planned to welcome guests through the side gate, and into the yard.

Rainbow Art Party Decorations streamer rainbow

I decorated the rose arbour with simple rainbow streamers. They looked so pretty blowing in the wind.

Art Party Decorations welcome chalkboard



Guests were welcomed by the chalkboard, and a basket of art smocks for our little guests.

Rainbow pinwheels

I added these giant rainbow pinwheels to the garden edge.

Indoor Rainbow Party Decorations

Inside, there was a pretty rainbow decorated mantel. During the photo shoot for the invitation we got lots of fun shots of the birthday girl with a bouquet of rainbow balloons. For the mantel I printed a few and put them in simple dollar store frames.

We made more rainbow bunting and added in some pretty rainbow candles.

Rainbow Art Party Decorations

In the kitchen, we didn’t have too much room for decorations. We decorated the chalkboard and I made a fun art birthday cake (think diaper cake but way better) as a centre piece. I used mini hat boxes as the base, and held art supplies in place with elastics, ribbon and a little tape. We layered crayons, pom poms, feathers, markers, and glue sticks, with a paint brush flag. It made for a fun addition.

art supplies cake decorations



In the dining room, I made this great birthday banner. I used free paint chips from the paint store, a letter stencil, and a black sharpie. It was so easy and turned out so cute.

art party paint chip banner decoration

On the dining room table was my second favourite decoration, a rainbow of candles.



Rainbow candle centre piece



I came up with the idea and wanted to start shopping but forced myself to check my candle stash before I bought anything.

Rainbow Art Party Decorations

I had them all, with the exception of two pairs of tamper candles. Guess I should do a candle inventory more often. I love how pretty they looked all together. I tried to keep it somewhat uniform by only using glass and a few metal candle holders.

Rainbow Art Party Decorations candles

Rainbow Guests Photo

One of the other best decorations -our guests! We asked the guests to all wear denim on the bottom and a certain coloured shirt on top all with the plan of taking a fun group shot. Love how it turned out. And you can see the birthday girl in her party outfit, white with a rainbow tutu -so much fun!

Rainbow Art Party guests


The Rain (It was a Rainbow Party After all)

It was a great party…despite the rain. That’s right it poured. The party started at 11, and by 10:30 we were pretty much set up for me to take pictures and add just a few more details. At 10:50 it started to rain -hard. We scrambled to get everything inside, including all the pretty paper lanterns before they were ruined. We forgot the paint smocks, but my mom quickly threw them in the dryer for a few minutes. 😉 As our guests were coming through the door, we were drying off the things from all of the 7 art centres we had originally set up in the backyard (more on the activities here).  Everything was thrown in the patio doors dripping wet while running around like chickens with our heads cut off when it started to pour.

But parties aren’t about everything being perfect, they’re about having fun together.  So our guests pitched in and we set everything up inside and had a great time.  I love our friends and family. I was most sad about the lanterns that had nowhere to go inside and ended up in my bedroom.  They were slightly damp but out of the way to be dealt with later. We all joked that everyone could see how pretty they were on the blog!  So there we have it, at least we had some pictures before the rain came!

And I must say that the birthday girl didn’t seemed that bothered by the rain (that interrupted her party for the third year in a row -next year an indoor party) and just had a great time enjoying her favourite pastime, art, with all her favourite people! Proving that life is what we make it, so we may as well make it a party -even in the rain!

Rainbow Art Party Activities: 7 Different Art Centres ideas for your Rainbow Art Party, and ideas for a drying gallery, and loot bags too.

I’m excited to share some more details of our Rainbow Art Party. The birthday girl chose the entire theme because she loves art, so we decided to set up seven different simple art activity stations for our little guests to enjoy.

Grab An Art Smock

We started out with giving everyone a paint smock to protect their party clothes.

rainbow art party

rainbow art party

rainbow art party ideas


Rainbow Play Dough

The first centre was Rainbow Play Dough. My daughter Paige made the sweetest little signs for each station. We used simple IKEA frames, and she drew pictures to go with each activity. I found this great “One Metre of Play Dough” and the kids (and some of the grown-ups too) loved it.

Rainbow Art Party Activities rainbow play dough


Spiral Art

The second centre was Spiral Art. I remembered doing spiral when I was a little girl. I picked up two kits at the dollar store for this station and all the pretty gel pens we could find.

Rainbow Art Party Activities spiral art


Watercolour Painting

The third Centre was Watercolour Painting. My girls really enjoyed this station. I picked up some watercolour paper, we added a few pencils for sketching and the paints.

Rainbow Art Party water colour station

Rainbow Art Party Activities


Marble and Tire Track Painting

The fourth centre was Marble and Tire Track Painting. I picked up a few shallow boxes at the grocery store, and we put some paint on a plate for our artists to roll their tires and marbles in. Then, they used the box to rotate the cars and/or marbles to make some great prints.

Rainbow Art Party Activities

toy car tire track painting


Bubble Art

The fifth centre was Bubble Art. To create pretty bubble printed paper, we made a mixture of paint, water, and dish soap. Then you create bubbles by blowing into the mixture with a straw, and then placing the paper on top to create the print. (A tip if you have very young artists, is to put a few pin pricks in the top half of the straws so that they can’t accidentally suck it in by mistake.)

bubble art

Acrylic Painting

The sixth centre was Acrylic Painting with a Canvas and Easel. For this station we set up acrylic paints in the colours of the rainbow, with palettes for mixing, and sweet little canvas’ with mini easels from the dollar store.

Rainbow Art Party Activities


Water Gun Painting

The seventh and final centre was Water Gun Painting. We filled water guns with very watered down paint. Before the party, I used painters tape to mark each canvas with the guests initial, after the paint was squirted on and it dried the tape was removed to reveal the initial.

water gun art


Drying Art Gallery

I set up a little art gallery for the paintings to dry and be viewed at. I made the banner from paint chips and a stencil -love how it turned out.

Rainbow Art Party gallery

To attach the art to the wire fence, I found some pretty rainbow striped washi tape, and added it to simple wooden clothes pins. It worked out great -after the rain stopped. 😉



Rainbow Art Party Activities

Art Party Loot Bags with Paint Chip Thank You’s

We also set up loot bags for our guests, so that throughout the party any art that didn’t need to dry could be tucked inside, along with their paint smocks once the painting was done. We also included a fun watercolour paint palette for some more creating at home.

Rainbow Art Party loot bags

I found pretty paper bags in every colour we needed. Then, we made thank you tags with more paint chips, and attached them to the bags with the rainbow washi tape.

Rainbow Art Party loot bags


 art party food

Rainbow Art Party Food

We had so much fun at our Rainbow Art Party, and I had a great time coming up with the food, and I can’t wait to share all the yummy details with you.

Paint Chips

While we were doing the art activities I had a chip buffet set up for munching on. This was one of my very favourite ideas of the party. I set up a Rainbow Chip Buffet, and we made a fun label that said “Paint Chips”. Get it, I know I have a gift.

paint chips art party food

I bought unused paint cans at the paint store, and painted a paint stir stick for each colour we used.

paint chips art party food

Rainbow Veggie Tray

We had ketchup chips for red, cheesies for orange, regular chips for yellow, guacamole chips (I found at the bulk store) for green, and blue tortilla chips for blue. Everyone loved it, and nibbled away between activities until lunch. I envisioned it set up outside, and then had to quickly set it up on the toy box when every thing was moved inside because of the rain, but you get the idea. 😉

rainbow veggie tray

For lunch we kept things simple and ordered pizza and wings, along with this Rainbow Veggie Tray of radishes, cherry tomatoes, carrots, yellow pepper, broccoli, cucumber, black olives and “black cherry” tomatoes. We couldn’t come up with a blue veggie, but we’re pretty close to a full rainbow. 😉

rainbow art party dessert table

Rainbow Art Party Dessert Table

The main food event of the party was the Rainbow Dessert Table.

Picture Frame Art Party Backdrop

I had a lot of fun putting it together. We started out with the pretty backdrop of rainbow coloured frames. I found them all at the second hand stores for a couple of dollars each. To start with I removed the backs and glass, and then painted them in different colours. The empty frames are  attached them to the wall with 3M hooks, they really work great and when you remove them, there really is no mark on the wall.

Paint Chip Food Labels

To make the food labels, I used some more paint chips.

rainbow art party dessert table

Rainbow Cake

The centre piece of the table was the rainbow cake. I made it out of two cake mixes, and used food colouring to tint the layers. My one little tip: this time I bought disposable cake pans at the grocery store, it was so much easier than using my regular two pans, three times to bake the six layers.

rainbow dessert table

I bought the special birthday candles that have a coloured flame. They were a hit.

rainbow art dessert table

The first slice was met by the appropriate oohs and aahs from the guests -as hoped for.

rainbow cake

Along with the Rainbow Birthday Cake there were lots of other sweet treats.

Rainbow Paint Brush Rice Krispies

Rice Krispie paintbrushes

We made Rainbow Paint Brush Rice Krispies. These were also a big hit -delicious and pretty easy too.

Rice Krispie paintbrushes

Rainbow Jello

We also made Rainbow Jello. It looked so pretty.

 rainbow jello

Rainbow Fruit Tray

We did a Rainbow Fruit Tray for good measure, although I have to say it didn’t see too much action. 😉

rainbow fruit tray

Paint Your Own Masterpiece Cookies

Lastly, my friend Heather made the amazing “Make Your Own Masterpiece” Sugar Cookies.

art party cookies

She made sugar cookies, and flooded them with white royal icing to make the perfect cookie canvas’, and outlined it all in a sweet little icing frame.

art party cookies

Guests used edible markers to draw their own picture.

art party cookies

These were also a huge hit -they were just so cool…and delicious.

rainbow paint can candy buffet

Rainbow Paint Can Candy Bar

As another treat for the loot bags we set up a Rainbow Candy Bar. I found the fun little paint buckets at the dollar store, and then we found candy in every colour at the bulk store. It looked so pretty, but I have say, so much candy left over.

rainbow art party candy buffet

The party was a great success, and the birthday girl was all smiles.

Rainbow Art Party: DIY rainbow art party decorations, 7 different art acitivity stations for guests, and rainbow art themd foods.

With a table full of Rainbow Desserts, life really is a party!

More Inspiration

You might also like our Ice Cream Party here.

Also check out our Board Game Night here.

You might also enjoy our DIY Rainbow Book Art here.

DIY Rainbow Book Art: Using old books as a canvas this DIY rainbow art in mustard yellow and pink is fun to make and inexpensive.

8 Comments

  1. This is pintrest worthy! What an AMAZING party! Sorry to hear the weather didn’t co-operate, but mama – up top for a high five! Unbelievable attention to detail…lucky 9 year old!

    I’m also a savvy mama…found ya on the site – you should be a party planner!

    .:Marta:.

    petiteraisin.ca

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *