Paint Pallet Art Treats

One of the many hats I wear (and one of my very favorites!) is that of art teacher. I teach several students in my home, and at the end of each school year I put together an art show to highlight their work throughout the year. 

This year as I was prepping for the event, I had the idea to create these sweet-and-salty paint pallets as a themed refreshment for the show. I LOVE when I think of something without the aid of Pinterest. I am grateful for Pin-spiration as well, but it is reassuring to know that I can still have an original idea on my own!

To make these pallets you will need:

• Original flavor Pringles
• Small Pretzel Sticks (Rold Gold are skinnier and work better than Snyder's)
• White Icing (I went the easy route and bought one of these.) 
• Red, Yellow, Blue, Green or other color Icing Tubes like these.

You can certainly make your own icing and tint it and slop it into sleeves to pipe onto these, but the extra $5 I may have spent for convenience and almost no clean-up was worth every penny to me!

Assembly:

 1. Put a circle of icing on a chip.

 2. Place another chip directly over it sandwiching them together. I tried this with single chips and they were too wimpy.  You need two stuck together to make them sturdy enough to hold the decorations you will be adding.

 3. Line about half a pretzel with white icing.

4.  Stick the pretzel to the chips you just prepared.

5. Add icing (any color) to the tip of the pretzel. Use that  color to make one paint splotch on the chip pallet.

6. Continue making paint splotches with each of the other colors.

Let it dry, and enjoy!

Candy Pretzel Owls

We had some kitchen creativity time on Sunday. It was rainy outside, and we were needing some hands-on production. I came up with these cute owls and even made a video tutorial to share how to make them!

They can also be made in smaller batches in the microwave, which was the method I used to test the idea. 

Enjoy!!

https://youtu.be/OyqZyyCtHaY

Participating in these link-ups. 

Fancy Nancy - Inspired Birthday Tea Party

Fancy Nancy is a household name for many families with 4-7 year-old little girls--including mine! And I welcome this darling, girly-girl created by author Jane O'Connor as she teaches my daughter to learn and use new vocabulary. Especially "fancy" words like GORGEOUS, ACCESSORIES, and ECSTATIC. 

So I jumped on the idea of having a Fancy Nancy-themed party for her fifth birthday. I haven't had this much fun planning for a party in quite a while. I guess I like being fancy, too!

I will share DECORATIONS, PARTY FAVORS, FOOD, and CRAFTS that I used at her party. Get ready to make your party a SMASHING SUCCESS! 

First I ordered the following items from Amazon: 

These darling little Tea Party Cups were economical and LOVED by all the guests. I wrote their names on them with a Sharpee using fancy, frilly handwriting.

I also ordered this Tea Cup Candy Mold to make as a treat for the girls to take home. You could serve them as a treat at the party, but since ours was held in late-afternoon, I decided to hold off as courtesy to the parents. :)

I also purchased Plastic Bags with Twist-ties, as well as Lollipop Sticks from Amazon so I would be good to go!

Here they are made up. I'm no confectioner, but the little girls didn't care about perfection! I just used melted white and milk chocolate chips to make the forms. 

You can't have a fancy party without fancy TIARAS! I was so pleased with these! They stayed on their heads because they were really just toothed headbands. 

And my final Amazon purchase was a package of Assorted-size Doilies.  It was amazing how much they added to the frilly, fanciness of the decor!

Now for our FANCY CRAFT: Paper Bag Purses

I used shaped scissors to cut rectangular holes out of paper bags.  Then I printed out the guests' names in a fancy font and glued them to each bag. 

The girls used stickers, washi tape, and lace tape to decorate their purses. This craft was a HIT! And it was a practical way for them to take home their teacup and lollipop when the party was over!

I found a couple of teapots at Goodwill to use in the decor.  The rest of the decor was stuff I already had around the house. I used fabric for the table cloths.

For food we served poppyseed muffins, Jello (in individual little plastic cups), and blueberries.

The "tea" was actually strawberry lemonade. :)

I ran out of time to iron my tablecloths. That was my one regret. But I LOVED using my grandmother's dessert plates (the ones with the flowers).  

I printed out a couple of pages: "Ooh La La" and a page of  "fancy words" from the Fancy Nancy books as decor.

Guests were also greeted with an "Oooh La La" at the front door, so they knew they were at the right house!

My favorite part was just hearing the little girl conversation as they enjoyed their tea-party!

Participating in these link-ups.