Dinosaur-Themed New Year's Party (2025)

Hey, guys! Today I have a rather random post since it is the middle of the summer, but dinosaurs were the theme and they are cool year-round, right? So here is our 2025 New Year's/New Year's Eve party. Below are the details:

-The mini resin dinosaurs came from Amazon.

-The 2025 numbers were made from a poster painted with acrylic paints to look like stones, then cut into the numbers. The dinosaur banner sign ("Celebrating a pterriffic new year!") was free-handed with markers. 

-The foil dinosaur balloon came from Dollar General (as did the treats and other balloons). 

I helped put this together thanks to the help and ideas of my friends (L. and M., they know who they are). 

I hope you enjoyed this theme! 

-Lauryn 

Nostalgic "Cabbage Patch Kids" Birthday Party

 Hello, Happy New Year (and Merry Christmas and Happy Thanksgiving, all of the other holidays that have passed since my last post, etc.)! I have so many events, classroom activities, gift ideas and projects to share. 

Today I would like to share a birthday from back in August that was Cabbage Patch Doll-themed for my mother, who grew up loving Cabbage Patch Kids (though I personally find the concept weird and creepy). It was intended to be a fun, nostalgic theme but also tailored for an adult, so I went with a muted sea green, white, and tannish-pink color palette. I drew or painted the logo on a poster, changing the letters to "Happy Birthday", used an old pumpkin dish upside down to kind of look like a cabbage (hopefully), bought matching flower dish sponges and party blowers as party favors, and a matching Ingles bouquet as the table centerpiece. I printed out vintage Cabbage Patch Kids templates for the party blower packaging. I bought the cookies, drew faces on them, and wrapped cabbage around them to create Cabbage Patch cookies (okay, admittedly not the most appetizing idea but visually the closest thing I could make to the logo). I also drew/painted a Cabbage Patch Kid poster and used a doll we already owned. I hope you enjoy!

Thank you for visiting!

-Lauryn 

Car Art Class Drawing Project

Hey, everyone! I am super excited to share a new art project I tried towards the end of the semester in honor of Father's Day for parents or art teachers who may be interested in having their children do this project. I found that my students really enjoyed it, and they did an amazing job. I am so proud of their hard, beautiful work! I only have photos of some of the artworks, but I was really impressed. These were made by my kindergarten-fourth graders. 

I used a car calendar from the dollar store and had them vote on a class favorite. The calendar had vintage and sports cars. I gave them two options: they could design their own car with no help (maybe even their Dad's or his favorite kind), or they could follow along with a step-by-step I did on the board. I don't usually do step-by-step art tutorials because I like their artwork to be creative and original, but those who did follow along colored their cars different colors and designed them how they wanted. Plus, this tutorial helped them break a detailed image into shapes and lines, as well as showed how to draw something three-dimensional. The backgrounds were made in advance by marbling the paper in shaving cream and food dyes. Terms I taught during this project were warm versus cool colors and proportion.  

I hope to share more art projects soon. I hope this art project/Father's Day gift idea useful! 

-Lauryn 

Riley's Neon Horse-Themed 9th Birthday Party

 Hello, everyone! Today I'd like to share a horse-themed ninth birthday party that my cousin requested have a neon color scheme. I drew the poster, bought the balloons at Walmart (except for the stars and nine balloon, which were from Amazon), painted a number nine balloon I already owned with neon acrylic paint, as well painted the paper bags that held cookies and paper that I cut into letters for the banner, and drew the pun signs with highlighters and neon-ish markers. The other party favors consisted of neon slinky toys and smoothie lip balms from Walmart. I ended up using teas in place of lemonade because the tea packages matched perfect, so one of the signs was rather misleading. The photo backdrop was just wrapping paper I had on hand. The rest of the supplies were things my grandparents or I had on hand. They bought the candy balloon at Ingles. 

I hope you enjoyed!

-Lauryn