Are you looking for a unique and creative way to celebrate your child's birthday? Hosting an art or painting-themed birthday party can be a fantastic idea! Painting parties are not only enjoyable but also encourage kids to express their creativity and imagination.

Several years ago I hosted a Trolls Theme Painting Party for my daughter's 7th birthday and it was a huge hit! Since then, I have helped friends host painting parties. In this blog post, I am 2 DIY projects you can make for a memorable kid's painting birthday party that will leave all the young artists smiling.

How to Print Outlines on the Canvases

Printing outlines or tracing a design on the canvases will help little artists get started. Just paint inside (or outside) the lines!

If you have a Cricut or Silhouette vinyl cutter, you can use vinyl to screen print an outline on all of your canvases. This is a quick and efficient process, especially if you are making a lot of canvases. 

I teach crafters how to screen print with vinyl on t-shirts but this same process works great for printing on canvases too!

Supplies Used for Screen Printing on Canvases with your Cricut

• Speedball Hinge Frame
• Squeegee
• Speedball Acrylic Ink (any color will work but I like using black)
• 12″x12″ Piece of Oracal 651 Vinyl (Siser PSV works well too!)
• Transfer Tape
• Painter's Tape
• Spoon or Spatula to scoop ink
• Blank Canvas Panels (the flat kind work best for screen printing)

Steps for Screen Printing on Canvases with your Cricut

1. Cut and weed your design outline on Oracal 651 vinyl. Don't forget to mirror the cut!
2. Transfer the vinyl to the back of your screen printing frame using transfer tape.
3. Line up your canvas under your vinyl design. Once you have it lined up perfectly, mark the corners on the base of your hinge frame. This will make it easier to line up the additional canvases under your screen.
4. Cover the open areas of the screen with painter's tape. This will prevent ink from going beyond the edges of your vinyl.
5. Scoop several tablespoons of ink along the top of your screen. 
6. Squeegee the ink over the screen using medium pressure. This part takes a little practice but ideally, you want to squeegee only 1 or 2 times.  Going over it too many times will cause ink to bleed under the vinyl and you won't have crisp lines. 
7. Lift the screen and remove your canvas.  
8. Repeat the process with all of your canvas.  There's no need to clean the screen between canvases. Just work quickly to print all of your canvases one after another.  Leaving the screen unused will cause the ink to dry in your screen and make it difficult to get a clean print.  
9. Allow your canvases to air dry for 1-2 hours.  
10. The canvases are all ready for your painting birthday party! We used acrylic paints from the craft store. The kids picked their colors and we squirted a small amount on these pallets.

Make Personalized Aprons

Personalized aprons not only serve as practical attire to keep clothes clean but also make for a great party favor for your art themed event. 

Using the same process as above, you can screen print on aprons too!  We used bulk kids' aprons from Amazon.  These aprons are not heat resistant, so don't use HTV on them. Screen printing works best for personalizing this type of apron.  Allow the screen printing ink to air dry and they are ready for the party!  Don't heat set these because the aprons will melt.  

If you are using cotton aprons that you plan to wash and reuse, I recommend using Speedball fabric ink and heat setting to cure the ink.  This will make them washable without fading.

More Art Inspired Ideas

For more art themed birthday party ideas including how I turned our garage into an art studio, check out my Painting Birthday Party post.