The Art Club: an art birthday party, planned

The look: a working studio with a pastel palette

Pastel balloons, paint-splash colours and white tablecloths that will not stay white. The studio should look like work is about to happen: brushes in jars, aprons on hooks, paper ready.

The mural is the centrepiece. A long roll of paper along one wall, with the birthday child's name sketched in outline, gets filled in by everyone during the party and becomes the backdrop for the cake.

• A pastel balloon garland in pink, mint, lilac and lemon over the dessert table.
• Paintbrushes and pencils standing in jam jars as table centrepieces.
• Paint-palette name cards at each seat.
• A clothes line with pegs to hang wet paintings, which doubles as the gallery.
• Plain aprons or old adult shirts worn backwards, one per artist.

The invitation

Lead with the fact that it will be messy, then make it sound like a privilege: the artist is invited to the studio. Ask for old clothes, and ask about allergies to paint or clay in the RSVP if any of the materials are new to you.

You're invited

The Art Club

The studio is open! Come and create at a birthday art club. Wear clothes that can get painty.

✓ Going? Maybe✗ Can't

A colourful menu and a paint-palette cake

Keep the food on a separate table from the paint, so nobody dips a carrot in the wrong pot.

• Rainbow fruit skewers, one colour per piece, in colour order.
• Paintbrush toast: bread "painted" with milk tinted with food colouring, then toasted.
• Crayon crackers: cheese and cracker stacks with a coloured pepper strip on top.
• Palette pizzas: small pizzas with a ring of different vegetables like dabs of paint.
• Colour lab drinks: water or lemonade with a choice of fruit cubes to change the colour.
• The cake: a white cake iced as an artist's palette with buttercream blobs of colour, or a drip cake in pastels with a fondant paintbrush on top.

Art stations

Run three stations and rotate the children through them, with an adult on each. Twenty minutes a station is about right.

• Canvas painting: small canvases and washable acrylics, with a simple prompt such as "your favourite animal".
• Tote bag design: plain cotton bags and fabric markers or stamps. Slip card inside so nothing bleeds through.
• The mural: everyone adds to the big paper wall at least once.
• Clay or salt dough sculpture, for groups that want something to hold.
• A gallery walk before the cake, where each artist names their piece.

Managing the mess

Most of the clean-up is decided before the first guest arrives. Cover the floor, choose washable paints, and put a bowl of wet wipes and a bin at every station. Decide where wet work dries, because a pile of canvases on the sofa is where the afternoon goes wrong.

How the two hours run

1. 0:00Artists arrive, put on aprons and add a first mark to the mural.
2. 0:15Station rotation one: canvases, tote bags or clay.
3. 0:35Station rotation two.
4. 0:55Wash hands, then food at the clean table.
5. 1:20Station rotation three while the paint dries.
6. 1:40Gallery walk and the palette cake.
7. 1:55Collect artwork, favours and goodbyes.

What to buy

Pack sizes are for about 15 kids. In PartyPal the list sizes itself to your headcount.

Common questions