Knowing we will be redecorating the whole house meant we could allow our children to do something we wouldn’t normally allow, painting on the walls. Our children’s birthdays are the same week and as painting is appropriate for all ages we decided to invite their friends to join us for a unique party.
Preparing for the party
It was easy to choose the room. We have a downstairs bedroom we’re not using because when we moved in the carpet was so smelly we pulled it up and haven’t replaced it. The walls are almost white and we know we will be knocking down a 4m long wall when we start making changes to the house.
It was harder to choose the paint. We originally planned to use normal paints and brushes, but realised that although we don’t mind about paint going on to the bare floor it might get messy if the children started arguing about the colours. I did a lot of browsing and found some ‘dobber’ paints and poster paints in a stick.
The party
You can imagine the children had great fun, and the wall was big enough so there was plenty of room for each child to paint what they wanted, plus there was room at the top of the wall for the adults to have a go as well. I love that you can tell the difference in ages from the different style of painting, many of the older children drew pictures or wrote their names while the younger ones did mark making. The children used both paint types and they both worked well on the wall, although my favourite is the poster paints because of the intensity of the colour, and as it was a thick paste there was no running.
To tie in with the paint colours, I made a cake with lots of bright colours on the outside and inside of the cake, using this recipe. The cake certainly looked interesting, but I’m not sure it was worth the effort and the pieces were so tall they were too large for the children to finish.
Cleaning up
Because of the paint types I chose, we ended the day with two paint free children. But there was still a good reason to have a bath. Crazy stuff for kids sent the children some bubble bath and soap as birthday presents. Perhaps I’ve been a poor mother because I’d only ever allowed them baby bubble bath, so this was certainly an exciting end to the day for them. My husband has had dry skin since he was a child meaning we are protective about what the children use, so it is great to read that all of these products are mild and gentle.
Although the sparkle bubble bath was of immediate interest, it is the colour changing one that has been used the most. In fact, when the adults weren’t looking B managed to open the bottle and pour half of it into the water; that was a fairly intense blue bath. Each bottle comes with a puppet and has lead to a new bath time activity of the puppet show. However, even though the bubble bath is fun, there is no question about their favourite product, the foam soap.
A few days before this, the health visitor told me she had some concerns about M’s speech so I’m behind the camera trying to encourage him to say “soap please Mummy”, and he really tries but is so excited he gets all muddled and even resorts to using the baby sign for please.
What have you done for unique birthday parties? What your favourite bath products?
Disclaimer: Crazy stuff for kids sent me 4 bottles of bubble bath and 2 of foam soap, however all comments and opinions are my own and the reactions by the children are not staged. I had thought about running a competition to give away a set of bottles, but the children found my hiding place, oops.
That sounds like such a fun party #WhatsTheStory
The kids loved it, but I’m curious that neither of ours have asked to do it again since hopefully that means they recognise it was a special activity and we don’t need to worry about our other walls
now that looks like fun!!
thanks for sharing with #MagicMoments x
It was fun for adults as well as children, my contribution was the sun. Thank you for hosting 🙂
Sounds like a great idea for a party and I am wondering how hard it will be to knock all those masterpieces down? #MagicMoments
You are right, my husband has already said he doesn’t want to knock the wall down, but it has to go otherwise we won’t get our study. Instead he has suggested when we their playroom is ready for decorating we allow them to paint their own walls. But we don’t know when they will have a playroom as there are lots of changes before then.
What a brilliant idea for a party, I bet they had the best time. One to remember too. It’s always great when they get so mucky that they’re easily cleaned. Thank you for sharing with #whatsthestory
Thank you for hosting, it is good to be encouraged to think about the story behind pictures. The children loved the painting and the cleaning so all together a good day.
This is such a fantastic idea for a party, and I loved the cake! #whatsthestory
Thank you. I have to admit I had help with the cake, my husband did a lot of the decorating.
What a fantastic idea! I remember doing this on wall paper that was due to be stripped just before a christmas party when I was little, your post brought back fond memories 🙂
#MagicMoments
Torsmum, There is a family story about my older sister tearing off wallpaper on the day they were moving house, I hope you were encouraged to draw on the wallpaper.
Oh I LOVE this! So ace to have a matching cake too!
Thank you Sarah, I have to admit that was more fluke than planing, but who knows?
That wall looks so gorgeous, it seems a shame to demolish it! I love the cake too!
Maddy, my husband is already talking of keeping it. I’m thinking more along the lines of a printed panoramic picture. We don’t have a time frame for demolishing the wall yet so it will be around for a bit longer yet.
What a great idea: our 2 would just love that! I’ll keep that in mind for when / if we refurbish 🙂
It was great fun. We are thinking when we give the children a playroom they can paint the walls in there; hopefully they will still be interested when we get there.