Spring Art Exhibition 2011 – the Details

The kids and I had a lot of fun planning our Art Exhibition. Every so often, I love planning a little event like this…one where the girls can really get involved in the details and help with everything from sending out invites, to making the decorations, to helping create the menu. Now don’t get me wrong, there are always a fair share of those moments when I ask myself why I am doing this and swear I’ll never do it again. But when it’s all said and done, I look back with joy at the laughs we’ve shared, the lessons we’ve learned, and the time we spent together creating something beautiful. During the week before the big event, we spent a little bit of time each day getting ready…

To begin with, the girls added some glitter glue to the invitations from One Charming Party’s art gallery pdf. Since we were sending them just to really close family and friends, it was fun to let the girlies add the simplest of details all on their own. 

Then, on Monday, we turned the numbers from that same pdf into ribbons that the girls used to designate their first, second and third favorite art selections that they had created.   

To make them, we simply measured a length of crepe paper that was about two times the distance around the outside of the number circle and then I ran a loose sewing machine stitch down the middle of the length of crepe paper. The girls helped to pull the strings and gather it into ruffles. We cut a smaller length of crepe paper to make the ribbon tails and then glued it all to the back of our numbers, which were printed on cardstock.   

It was a fun way to bring attention to the girls favorite pieces and also helped them find a starting point as they talked to their guests about their masterpieces the night of the exhibition.On Tuesday, we made party favors. We found these little mini paint cans at Michaels, so we filled them with layers of different colored skittles. The top paint can label is made from One Charming Party’s art gallery cupcake toppers. I just printed the words “Color Me Happy!” on top.  On Wednesday, the girls each made their artist profile, which is probably my favorite feature included in One Charming Party’s pdf. It includes a whole array of different shades of color for the frames, which are just beautiful! And what fun, that because of our Pineapple Paintbrush art class, both my 3 and 5-year olds had the name of a favorite artist to include on their profile! Also on Wednesday, the girls painted this enormous sign for the front of our fireplace: On Thursday, we used sidewalk chalk to decorate a chalkboard flowerpot  in which we plant a gerbera daisy. (I made the pot in advance by simply spraying painting it with chalkboard paint.) Also, that evening, my girlies came up with the idea to decorate our front steps with sidewalk chalk , welcoming our guests to the art exhibition (unfortunately, I didn’t think to snap a photo of it before the rain got to it).  

Friday was by far the most challenging day of the week! Because we wanted the details to be a surprise for Daddy, we couldn’t do too many of the preparations in advance. So in addition to our last minute food preparation, we also had to hang all 50+ pieces of artwork around the family room and hang our decorations. We wanted to make a balloon bouquet like Dani did for her Art Exhibition, but we couldn’t find anywhere locally that sold the balloon sticks. So we improvised by taping balloons on hard plastic straws and putting them in a colorful pot. We also added a jar of rainbow twizzlers to our table, and made a paint pallete cupcake display.    

I had sewed the following colorful decorations to use for our kiddos upcoming birthday parties, so we decided to use those as well. They were both inspired by the adorable 1st Birthday Party that Jess had for her sweet little guy.

• Circle Garland (just circles punched from scrapbook paper and sewn together):
• Rainbow Bunting (scrapbook paper trianges simply zigzagged onto a piece of ribbon).

Then, there were a couple other things that I did to make our display feel more gallery-like and also because they were just a great way to capture and remember the magic we experienced during our Pineapple Paintbrush adventure. The first of which was to make gallery labels for all the finished products. I included the kiddo’s name, the name that they gave their masterpiece, the date (month and year), the official title of the project, the art materials used, and finally a little information about how the piece was made. I love them because not only were they very helpful when our guests were talking to my little ones about their projects, but we can also attach them to the back of our pieces to keep a better record of all our creations!      

The second thing I did was to make programs for the event. I did this more for me than for any other purpose. I just wanted a way to capture the wonderful experience that this journey had been for us. To make it, I simply used a tri-fold brochure template that was in Microsoft Word. On the cover, I included a photo of each of my kiddos making one of our projects, along with this quote from Pablo Picasso: “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”On the inside, I dedication a section to each one of my 3 kiddos. For each one, I included a photo of the kiddo in their “Sunday best”, a photo of their favorite work of art in our exhibition, and a write-up that told their age, their interests, the activities they were currently involved in or looking forward to later this year, their favorite art mediums to use, and what they wanted to be when they grow up.  Then on the back, I gave a brief synopsis of what we learned and did throughout the course. It turned out to be a wonderful keepsake for us!

Not only did we have a great time planning this fun night, but we also got a jump start on the art party my daughter says she wants to have to celebrate her birthday later this year!

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Spring Art Exhibition 2011
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1. Spring Art Exhibition 2011