I Love Me Some Birthday Parties!

January has been an AWESOME month for Birthdays at Children's Art Studio. The studio has been busy nearly every weekend! :) Just wanted to share some photos/how-to's so you can have as much fun as we do. See below! XOXO- Anna

 Thanks to Andrea for having (little) Anna's Birthday with me! It was a fabulously artistic group of 9 kiddos that had some solid art time. We made fantastic flower collages on wood. Steps go like so:

1. Get a piece of wood from Lowe's, I just have them cut a big board for me into 1 ft. pieces
2. Kids use paint roller (little mini ones are perfect) and "roll" the edges of the wood to create a frame.
3. Now, take newspaper pieces and draw different shapes to build your own flowers. (3 layers to make one flower)
4. Circles on top of circles are a very easy route. 
5. Cut out of newspaper.
6. Watercolor these shapes/flowers.
7. We used water/glue mixture to add strips of construction paper and/or magazine to the wood to create a textured background.
8. Add stems with strips of green construction paper, glued down and added a button for the middle. :) 
9. See how to hang the artwork here from a previous post.
10. Done. All fantastically gorgeous.

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Thanks to Tracy for having Collin's Birthday at CAS! Again, we had a whole lot of art time at this event, and kiddos even learned how to mix their own cement for a stepping stone. Collin LOVES Mario Brothers, so to start, we made a Piranha Plant Magnet coming out of a "pipe" (I said flower pot, and quickly Collin corrected that statement!)

To make your very own Piranha Plant Magnet:

1. Cut red card stock into a circle

2. Cut a triangle out of that circle for the mouth

3. Cut and attach green stem 

(we just used regular Elmer's Glue)

4. Make a green "tube" from card stock

5. Add white triangle teeth

6. We used a 1 inch circle punch to make the dots

7. Cut a strip of magnet and attach to back. 

To make your very own Stepping Stone:

1. Buy Quikrete (I'm biased, go to Lowe's)
2. Get a stick/spoon/bucket that you will dispose
3. Mix 2-1 part concrete to water and mix
4. Continue until you achieve a brownie-mix consistency
5. Pour into a pie tin (one dollar each at Deals$)
6. Decorate with any item except wood
7. We broke ceramic plates to use also...
8. Press items firmly into concrete.
9. Let dry for a few days and remove pie tin.
10. Set outside as a beautiful garden piece :)

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Thanks to Ebony and for celebrating Laila's 4th Birthday with lots of friends and family! We were at our max with 30 people in the little studio space. Woo-hoo!

As you can see, we did some really pretty luminaries for this party. This is so very simple. 

1. Get any old vase, candle holder, plate, votive - whatever you can find and add tissue paper.
2. Water down some glue and add it to the vase before tearing tissue and attaching
3. Add glue on top of the tissue and it will make it nice and smooth
4. I don't have any finished products to show - I was far too busy to snap photos! So sorry
5. We added gems, glitter, buttons, beads and ribbon to embellish.
6. Don't forget to top off with a candle inside.

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One last explanation - then go get busy. Thanks to Amanda for having Natalie's 5th Birthday at CAS. This was an awesome, organized, and very pleasant group of kiddos :)

• We started with a piece of wood (I told you I love these wood projects!)
• Painted. No rules.
• Added little tissue paper squares and "wish" tickets for a little collage look
• Then kiddos pounded in some nails - they seriously love this part (and parents are always impressed)
• Last step was to add string/yarn to these nails and play "connect the dots" (or nails)
• The hardest part for little fingers is to tie the string to the first and last nail, adults may have to help with this part

Amanda Hoy - thanks for this awesome picture. I will hire you one of these days :)