One day I was out in my dad's shop painting some Patriotic hearts for Mom and me to hang on our front doors and I said to Mom, "Wouldn't it be fun to have a paint party for door hangers?" Well of course that got my mind rolling and since her birthday was coming up, I decided it would be the perfect kind of birthday party for her!
Her birthday is in mid-July so we brainstormed season-appropriate door hangers. It was too late to do something summery but too early for pumpkins and super fall-ish stuff, so we landed on sunflowers. Perfect!
Mom and I had a mini paint party by ourselves so that we could have two different examples to show her friends. I made my sunflower kind of whimsical and she did hers realistic. Both turned out really cute, I think!
I cut out and sanded all the sunflower templates before party time and we cleaned Dad's shop up enough for us to spread out on the tables. Earlier in the day I had stopped by a field and clipped fresh sunflowers to use as inspiration too.
As soon as Mom's friends arrived, I made them get to work! :) It was a lot of fun painting together. They took different ideas from each of our examples or came up with ideas on their own. They helped each other while parts of their own flowers were drying. Mom and I provided a taco bar for dinner so we had lots of food breaks, too!
In progress and drying while we stuffed our faces...
Since we were celebrating Mom's birthday, I attempted to make sunflower cupcakes. I probably should've started working on them with more than thirty minutes before party time because they weren't the best sunflowers I've ever seen. I forgot to take a picture of the full platter; these are just the ones that were leftover at the end of the night.
By the end of the night, everyone had a super cute door hanger to take home with them! I love how they all look alike but different at the same time. Everyone did such an awesome job painting them.
Everyone left with strict instructions to send me a picture of their sunflower on their front door, or I threatened to ride by their houses to see for myself. They all did as they were told! :) It was fun getting all the group texts with everyone's door picture. I actually ended up being the last one to get mine up because I forgot to take it home with me. D'oh!
I hope Mom and her friends had as much fun as I did! I don't think it's something I would want to do every night (it took a lot of pre-work getting ready!) but definitely something worth doing every couple of months. Now I just have to figure out what we can paint next!