saige and horses and painting...oh my...

for my daughter's 9th birthday

she asked for the american girl doll of the year, saige.

like my daughter, saige loves to paint and she rides horses.

so we decided to plan her party around saige, painting and horses.

for the food table, we highlighted saige and her favorite things.

the "chalkboard" horse backdrop was actually black foam core!

i made the hot air balloons

(an important event in the "saige paints the sky" book)

from paper lanterns and paper candy bowls.

this tutorial was very helpful.

all the printables i designed for the party were made to look like watercolor.

how pretty is the cake??

using the wilton gel food coloring to get the bright colors

and following this tutorial,

it was actually the easiest cake i have made.

food

 {food labels are part of the printable package}

 horse ribbon cup labels

{straw flags are also part of the printable package}

{lemonade can wraps}

my kids love lemonade at parties so i like to make these wraps.

usually i buy countrytime lemonade.

their cans look much prettier with the wraps.

 the girls also got to decorate their own cupcake.

i loved this idea of using the paint pallet for the toppings.

the birthday girl (who is a little tired in this picture)

had a great idea to make hot air balloon ice cream.

it was so hot that they were pretty messy, but the girls loved them!

i thought it was a creative idea!

.......................

activities

 crazy party lady moment of this event- i glittered the paintbrushes!

each girl got their own canvas.

i got a GREAT deal at joann fabrics which made this size doable.

i used my cricut to cut the horse shape from vinyl. 

fyi hobby lobby lets you use a 40% off coupon on cricut materials.

some of the horses started to peel off so i used some spray glue to make them stickier.

the girls painted the whole canvas and then when they were done,

we peeled the horse off and the white horse shape was left.

 my other daughter wearing the cute shirt my sister made.

she also has an etsy shop!

and of course - the pinata!

for the girls' favors, we got these cute paint cans (oriental trading)

they collected their pinata candy in them.

printable favor tags available through my etsy shop

my sister also made this shirt for the birthday girl

here are the links to some of the ideas i used at this party including

paint easel holders for food labels,

painting project,

paint brush pretzels,

paint brush rice krispie treats

see lots more painting/watercolor/horse/saige party ideas on

my pinterest board