Spa party

One of the things we offer is spa parties. These are tons of fun. I did one recently for a small group of girls having a birthday slumber party.

We did manis and pedis and facials with cucumbers (definitely their favorite part). There was a make up station for the girls to apply their own or each other's make up.

We also made our own bath salts, which the girls decided to do like sand art and made layers of different colors in their jars.

Inside Out Painting Party

We did a fun painting party recently to go along with the new Inside Out movie. The kids painted Joy.

I drew the picture lightly on the canvas in pencil and the kids painted them.

They had a lot of fun naming the different "emotion colors" of their bubbles :D.

Art Parties -- Oodles of Owls

It really has felt like oodles of owls lately. I've done several owl painting parties for a number of 7 and 8 year old girls and it's been loads of fun.

I think I've found a few keys to making the process with a slightly younger crowd go more smoothly and so we've all enjoyed it more.

This last weekend we had a patio painting party. It was hilarious as it was soooo windy. I had decided to put the paint on paper plates this time instead of plastic palettes to make the clean up easier and goodness only knows what I was thinking. Paper plates full of paint in super windy conditions... definitely not a good idea. We had two plates go flying.

Thankfully though, no one got paint on their clothes and the girls did a wonderful job and we all had loads of fun!

As you can see they all came out lovely and everyone got to try out their own creativity.

 Aren't these cute? My favorite thing about hosting these parties is seeing the originality each kid brings to their own work. There is always a story and reason behind each addition and that makes it so entertaining.

Some kids are so neat and precise and that is an art in itself, and others just get in there and get wild with the colors and add so much to the original idea and just let their inner artist out and I love that.

Mixed Media Art Class Birthday Party

Yesterday I had a lot of fun teaching an art class at a birthday party for a group of nine girls.

We did something different this time by making mixed media canvasses, using scrapbook paper, buttons, sticks, snowflakes, flowers, sequins, etc. and a whole lot of mod podge.

This is great for a party as it only requires a little instruction, some fun ideas and a whole bunch of supplies and everyone can be as creative as they like.

The girls did some really great paintings and were all very pleased and proud of their work.

A lot of the girls did Christmas paintings.

A happy birthay girl.

 Love how the girls personalities come out in their art (note the tongue sticking out on this snowman :).

Even little brother got into it. With mom's help they made this darling snowman.

This is most of them. A few girls had gone home by this time.

If you would like to book an art party of your own go to http://leilasartcorner.squarespace.com/art-party/ for more information.

I received some samples recently of some of the covers of the books I was illustrating back in August. Fun to see these taking shape.

These are being printed in Taiwan, so it'll be a surprise to see how they come out. These are very low-res pictures and the colors are a bit off, but I thought to post them just for fun!