Magical Unicorn Art Birthday
November 3, 2017
~ This posting is dedicated to my daughter, NhaUyen Averie ~
My wish for you is that life becomes all that you want it to be.
Your dreams stay BIG, and your worries stay small.
You never need to carry more than you can hold.
And while you're out there getting where you're getting to.
I hope you know somebody loves you.
And wants the same things too.
- Anonymous -
My wish for you is that life becomes all that you want it to be.
Your dreams stay BIG, and your worries stay small.
You never need to carry more than you can hold.
And while you're out there getting where you're getting to.
I hope you know somebody loves you.
And wants the same things too.
- Anonymous -
Time flies...and before I know it, here I am looking at my five-year-old baby girl who is about to attend Kindergarten in less than a year from today. Of course I'm eager to learn more about the person she is becoming and am excited to witness her accomplishments. Yet, as we overcame each milestone, it also reminded me of the growing distance that will soon be in between her and I as she grows. Call me a worry-freak, but I'm already thinking about the day she packs her stuff to move out for college, and it breaks my heart. Every. Single. Time.
This birthday event is planned for NhaUyen Averie, who loves anything pink and sparkly. The party is partially done for me because I love pink as well. And we’ll throw the unicorn in the mix to make the party more magical. Although I sort of convinced Averie to choose the unicorn theme, she was the person who decided on everything else including the main theme colors, which were light purple, pink and turquoise. She'd also helped cleaning up house, along with Big Brother, a few days before the event. Averie also enjoys doing crafts, painting and drawing. That's actually another thing she probably got from me. But she is definitely way more creative than I am. Her beautiful drawings are all hanging along the wall at grandparents' house. She usually paints every time she gets home from school, so we both agreed to transform the birthday into a Magical Unicorn Art Party.
Let's see. Things to talk about Averie. She is an independent girl with a strong will since the day she was born. Like me, she is a girl who wears fancy dresses and loves make-up. But that's about how far the similarities lie between our mother-daughter bond. She inherits the bravery from Daddy to explore treacherous things, toughness to endure disciplines without tears, and is so much more adventurous than Mommy. I often find myself admiring her for these qualities that I lacked, and I silently prayed she will continue to grow into an independent, strong girl to face the challenges that life would bring. At the same time, these qualities made it difficult to redirect her, and I'm telling you, it takes skills to reinforce the rules in our house for my little girl. Thus, life with Averie definitely is never a boring one!
This birthday event is planned for NhaUyen Averie, who loves anything pink and sparkly. The party is partially done for me because I love pink as well. And we’ll throw the unicorn in the mix to make the party more magical. Although I sort of convinced Averie to choose the unicorn theme, she was the person who decided on everything else including the main theme colors, which were light purple, pink and turquoise. She'd also helped cleaning up house, along with Big Brother, a few days before the event. Averie also enjoys doing crafts, painting and drawing. That's actually another thing she probably got from me. But she is definitely way more creative than I am. Her beautiful drawings are all hanging along the wall at grandparents' house. She usually paints every time she gets home from school, so we both agreed to transform the birthday into a Magical Unicorn Art Party.
Let's see. Things to talk about Averie. She is an independent girl with a strong will since the day she was born. Like me, she is a girl who wears fancy dresses and loves make-up. But that's about how far the similarities lie between our mother-daughter bond. She inherits the bravery from Daddy to explore treacherous things, toughness to endure disciplines without tears, and is so much more adventurous than Mommy. I often find myself admiring her for these qualities that I lacked, and I silently prayed she will continue to grow into an independent, strong girl to face the challenges that life would bring. At the same time, these qualities made it difficult to redirect her, and I'm telling you, it takes skills to reinforce the rules in our house for my little girl. Thus, life with Averie definitely is never a boring one!
CRAFTS
Invitations
It's always started with a beautiful, handmade invitation with each and every party that I hosted. I found some cute unicorn clip arts and used them throughout the party to keep theme consistent. This is me. I like consistency in almost everything I do. Originally, I wanted to search for purple envelops, but I ended up with these beautiful inexpensive turquoise envelops I found at Michael's and I couldn't pass the deal up. I made the envelop liners pink to add a touch of the party’s primary theme color. Each invitation comes with a back side with a cute poem I found for the unicorn lovers.
Invitations
It's always started with a beautiful, handmade invitation with each and every party that I hosted. I found some cute unicorn clip arts and used them throughout the party to keep theme consistent. This is me. I like consistency in almost everything I do. Originally, I wanted to search for purple envelops, but I ended up with these beautiful inexpensive turquoise envelops I found at Michael's and I couldn't pass the deal up. I made the envelop liners pink to add a touch of the party’s primary theme color. Each invitation comes with a back side with a cute poem I found for the unicorn lovers.
Posters and Signs
Pinterest gave me so many ideas with these posters, and I couldn’t stop making them for the party. I think these signs made this costum party more unique.
Pinterest gave me so many ideas with these posters, and I couldn’t stop making them for the party. I think these signs made this costum party more unique.
The signs were placed scattering around the house, with the welcom- sign in front of the main entrance. I also made a sign that composed of the five pictures for Averie to share with her classmates as well as part of the party decoration for the sweet table.
I also made mini cards for most of the desserts along with some pop up messages, such as "Happy 5th Birthday" or "You Are Magical" and my favorite one was "Magical Unicorn Paint" that were placed near NhaUyen's Art Studio Set-up.
Party Favors and Thank-You Tags
Party favor this time around was not sweet treats because the kids were mostly overdosed on candies over the Halloween day. Since this is an art party, and I have set my heart making the kids feel like the real artists, I selected painting as one of the main activities for the kids to do together. I blocked out the entire dining room area and transformed it into "NhaUyen's Art Studio," where the kids would be doing their painting at. Each kid was welcomed with a blank 8x10 white canvas that’s neatly wrapped under one of the colorful aprons. Inside each apron held a paint brush and a rectangular painting palettes. Luckily I found these plastic mini 6-well coloring trays with a hole where I could easily tie the thank-you tag onto. Don't you love how it looks on this purple apron? Once the kids were done with their painting, they get to keep all of their art supplies to bring home for future projects.
Party favor this time around was not sweet treats because the kids were mostly overdosed on candies over the Halloween day. Since this is an art party, and I have set my heart making the kids feel like the real artists, I selected painting as one of the main activities for the kids to do together. I blocked out the entire dining room area and transformed it into "NhaUyen's Art Studio," where the kids would be doing their painting at. Each kid was welcomed with a blank 8x10 white canvas that’s neatly wrapped under one of the colorful aprons. Inside each apron held a paint brush and a rectangular painting palettes. Luckily I found these plastic mini 6-well coloring trays with a hole where I could easily tie the thank-you tag onto. Don't you love how it looks on this purple apron? Once the kids were done with their painting, they get to keep all of their art supplies to bring home for future projects.
SWEETS
Since I had a few weeks to prepare for this birthday party, I went all out in making these little desserts. I started out with my original Vanilla Macarons recipe, but this time, instead of the original round macarons, I created the two ears and the horn in the middle. I have tried making unicorn macarons for a friend in the past, so this is not new to me. Although, I have to admit that piping macaron batter is super tricky and is not like pipping buttercream at all. There is definitely not much room for error. One tip I have is to pipe quickly and to ensure you have time to straighten up the horn and ears before the batter dries up. Once the cookies were all cooked and sandwiched between pink strawberry buttercream frosting, I started to work on the decorations, which is the best part of making unicorn macarons. I first colored the horn in gold lemon with gold dust, then the two inner ears pink for each macaron. Then I added the closed eyes with eyelashes using black edible Wilton gel food coloring, and pink dust for the blushes on both cheeks. The last thing I did was to add two fondant flowers at the bottom of the horn.
Since I had a few weeks to prepare for this birthday party, I went all out in making these little desserts. I started out with my original Vanilla Macarons recipe, but this time, instead of the original round macarons, I created the two ears and the horn in the middle. I have tried making unicorn macarons for a friend in the past, so this is not new to me. Although, I have to admit that piping macaron batter is super tricky and is not like pipping buttercream at all. There is definitely not much room for error. One tip I have is to pipe quickly and to ensure you have time to straighten up the horn and ears before the batter dries up. Once the cookies were all cooked and sandwiched between pink strawberry buttercream frosting, I started to work on the decorations, which is the best part of making unicorn macarons. I first colored the horn in gold lemon with gold dust, then the two inner ears pink for each macaron. Then I added the closed eyes with eyelashes using black edible Wilton gel food coloring, and pink dust for the blushes on both cheeks. The last thing I did was to add two fondant flowers at the bottom of the horn.
Second, I made a small batch of sugar cookies which I colored turquoise, although they turned out a bit greener than what I would prefer. I used a different soft sugar cookies recipe and thought this recipe spread a little more than my original sugar cookies recipe, which I would definitely go back to. I used the new cookie-tag cutters to punch these out and I made the rest using the round-cookie cutter because to me they are the easiest to decorate and the shape is never too boring to use.
I wanted to keep the cookies simple so I just coated them with a white royal icing layer and painted the rainbow and clouds on all of the round cookies, to be consistent with the theme. This was my first time painting on sugar cookies and I loved it. It was quick and easy, and the result was beautiful. For the tag cookies, I just made swirls around the top after piping the royal icing and added two fondant flowers on them.
I wanted to keep the cookies simple so I just coated them with a white royal icing layer and painted the rainbow and clouds on all of the round cookies, to be consistent with the theme. This was my first time painting on sugar cookies and I loved it. It was quick and easy, and the result was beautiful. For the tag cookies, I just made swirls around the top after piping the royal icing and added two fondant flowers on them.
Next, I used a doctored vanilla cupcake recipe and colored the batter in light pink. I added sour cream to make the cupcakes moist. I know I wanted to decorate some of them with buttercream and some with 3-D unicorn toppers, so I made 6 cupcakes using buttercream frosting and 6 cakes using fondant decorations. For the first 6 cupcakes, I covered the cupcakes with fondant using the three main theme colors and added the toppers on each of them. I made 2 unicorn toppers, 2 rainbows with clouds, and 2 painting canvases with a unicorn and the birthday girl's name. I love how the easels were structured on these cupcakes! On the other hand, I piped buttercream flowers on to next 3 cupcakes, and saved the last 3 to make the head of the unicorns with colorful hair, horn and ears. These cupcakes are so simple to put together, yet beautiful to look at.
Finally, I made two cakes for the event because we would ultimately have two separate parties on the same day: the one in the afternoon for the kids and the one in the evening for family and adults. I wanted Averie to have a chance to blow the candles twice because that is her favorite thing to do on her birthday.
The main cake is covered in fondant with a big unicorn topper along with the rainbow and clouds. The second cake was a buttercream rainbow cake with the unicorn head, colorful hair with the classic horn and ears. I can't decide which cake is my favorite, but I can say one thing that it was faster to assemble and decorate the buttercream cake—less than two hours and that also included the time of making the frosting.
The main cake is covered in fondant with a big unicorn topper along with the rainbow and clouds. The second cake was a buttercream rainbow cake with the unicorn head, colorful hair with the classic horn and ears. I can't decide which cake is my favorite, but I can say one thing that it was faster to assemble and decorate the buttercream cake—less than two hours and that also included the time of making the frosting.
ACTIVITIES
Unicorn masks
I prepared a small coloring table area for the kids to "warm up" as they arrive. I printed a bunch of unicorn coloring mask printable templates which I found on "it's always autumn" blog for the kids to color and assemble. The picture below was the mask that Averie made before her friends came. I also provided the lollipop sticks for the kids to tape the mask on to if they want to hold it around. Only a few younger kids actually finished the mask because they were all into playing hide and seek and tag around the house.
Unicorn masks
I prepared a small coloring table area for the kids to "warm up" as they arrive. I printed a bunch of unicorn coloring mask printable templates which I found on "it's always autumn" blog for the kids to color and assemble. The picture below was the mask that Averie made before her friends came. I also provided the lollipop sticks for the kids to tape the mask on to if they want to hold it around. Only a few younger kids actually finished the mask because they were all into playing hide and seek and tag around the house.
Canvas painting
The highlight activity of the day is painting on canvases. I purchased the value package of the 8x10 canvases from Michaels craft store along with their painting brushes, aprons, and table easels for each kid. I was unable to obtain the same color easels so I got black for the boys and white for the girls. Now, the kids ended up at a different station at the end which was totally fine. I needed an extra a long table to add on to my dining table for the numbers of kids we had at the party. I also purchased a bigger table easel in wood especially for Averie to make her feel slightly more special since it's her birthday. I placed the "party favor package" next to each easel along with the kids' name and spread around the unicorn images as confetti on the painting table. I also got a pink tag with a letter "A" on it where I placed on Averie's painting station.
The highlight activity of the day is painting on canvases. I purchased the value package of the 8x10 canvases from Michaels craft store along with their painting brushes, aprons, and table easels for each kid. I was unable to obtain the same color easels so I got black for the boys and white for the girls. Now, the kids ended up at a different station at the end which was totally fine. I needed an extra a long table to add on to my dining table for the numbers of kids we had at the party. I also purchased a bigger table easel in wood especially for Averie to make her feel slightly more special since it's her birthday. I placed the "party favor package" next to each easel along with the kids' name and spread around the unicorn images as confetti on the painting table. I also got a pink tag with a letter "A" on it where I placed on Averie's painting station.
I bought the aprons from Amazon and some from the Dollar Tree, just because Averie wanted a pink apron and the set I got from Amazon did not come in pink. I also prepared for a paper cup of water and pink napkins at each painting station for the kids to clean their brushes in between colors.
I really like how the "Art Studio" setup turned out. It definitely gave a feel of a professional studio and the kids were all excited to start painting on their canvases.
I really like how the "Art Studio" setup turned out. It definitely gave a feel of a professional studio and the kids were all excited to start painting on their canvases.
I served them lunch first before I started the painting activities, just to make sure they don't have food and juices all over the canvases. I was debating between a set image for painting or free paint, and I finally decided that free painting would be a whole lot easier on me. Each kid was started out with two different painting colors, and we went from there. The Moms were very helpful in assisting me to pour paint for the kids. I only gave the kids a small amount of paint at a time because we did not want to make big messes in the house. For this reason, I also picked to purchase Crayola washable paint for the ease of cleaning. (Oh boy, you don't know how long it took me to convince my husband to host this party at our house! And yes, he has more power in making this decision than I do because he does the cleaning around the house.)
I was hoping to obtain a picture of all the kids with their paintings, but some kids were lagging behind and some kids had to leave a bit early, so I ended up taking pictures of individual kid with his/her painting. If I have to vote on my favorite painting, I would have to say my son's painting, and I'm not being biased, because a lot of other moms had agreed with me on that too.
I was hoping to obtain a picture of all the kids with their paintings, but some kids were lagging behind and some kids had to leave a bit early, so I ended up taking pictures of individual kid with his/her painting. If I have to vote on my favorite painting, I would have to say my son's painting, and I'm not being biased, because a lot of other moms had agreed with me on that too.
I hope you enjoyed this birthday celebration as much as we did. I put a lot of thoughts and planning to carry out this event, and it was amazing to see how much fun all of the kids had while painting. No doubt it was a lot of work and effort, and at times, it felt overwhelmed with the work involved. But all in all, at the end of every party, it was still worth all the hard work.
This is such a fun art party to host. And I am definitely going to make use of the easels and painting brushes that I purchased. I think a family paint night or adult paint night are calling for me ever since I got done with this party.
xoxo
Tristina
This is such a fun art party to host. And I am definitely going to make use of the easels and painting brushes that I purchased. I think a family paint night or adult paint night are calling for me ever since I got done with this party.
xoxo
Tristina
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