arty-crafty kids party

[jeangenie]

have been asked by the mum of one of my art club pupils to do an arty-crafty session at her 9 yo daughter's birthday party in July

am meeting her tomorrow to discuss but have no idea about prices...she has said she wants to pay going rate but I don'tknow what that is...

it'll be for 1.5 hours and the plan is that the kids will take home whatever they make instead of party bags

any thoughts you have on how I can price this would be most welcome

or on how much people normally pay for this kind of thing (ie someone to deal with kids at party)

(I'm a stingy old dear who always entertains them herself (or rather gets DH to do it!!!))

(will be back later to ask for your ideas on what to do )

[gillybean2]

Not sure. My son went to a party at one of those pottery painting places and they came home with the pottery item they had painted and glittered. Perhaps check out anything local to you like that for party prices.

Also rather depends on what craft activities you are going to do with them. I run an after school art club which I charge £2 per child for but that covers materials only and is non profit, I don't get anything for myself. I tailor my activities to that price and could spend a lot more per child if I let myself go mad!

If you want some decent craft kit ideas where you don't have to gather everything togetehr yourself and which are quite cheap try yellowmoon.org.uk. I can recommend the dream catchers and the pencil toppers with dangly legs which are on special offer at the moment 1.50 for 6! Use acrylic paint pens if you're worried about mess from paint pots, a little more expensive and you have to ensure you have enough to go around, but so much easier than brushes, water, spills...

Yellowmoony also have some lovely fabric painting ideas, such as drawstring bags, shoulderbags and puppets. Or you cold get cheap t-shirts for them to paint a design onto.

I also suggest you ensure that you cover yourself by making sure parents aware that they need to provide an apron or old clothing (unless you have enough aprons to go around). Also make sure you have it written somewhere that you accept no liability for damage to clothing etc.

And depending on the numbers you might need an additional helper. So think about factoring in the cost of hiring someone else to come along too. Parents will probably want to sit back and leave you to do it all, so don't rely on them for help.

Find out how long the party is and how much of that will be spent doing the activity. Assuming they will need time for singing happy birthday and cake etc. And most importantly agree the numbers in advance. I would say give a fixed rate for a party of up to x number once you have workd out the costs. If less come then you still need to cover the cost of materials. And if someone extra turns up on the day, or someone brings a sibling then you can always say sorry it's for a max of 20 (or however many)

So lets say we assume the party will be 2 hours. You want to calculate your expenses as something like:

Cost of craft materials
Additional expenses (travel etc)
Paying for Additional Helper (or 2)
Amount you would like to get bearing in mind your time and effort

Total all those expenses, and round up a little for unexpected things. Then divide the cost per child and see if it seems reasonable in relation to what else is available around you. If you are horribly underpricing yourself, or are way over the top rethink your activities and adjust accordingly.

Best of luck
Gilly

[cazzybabs]

Round here you would be looking at between 50-70 pounds an hour

[ProfYaffle]

I've recently paid someone to run a similar kind of party for dd1. We had 18 children for 2hrs, 2 craft activities, food (but not the cake), party bags for all plus coffee etc for the grown ups. We paid about £150 - £200 (can't quite remember) which included the organiser's time and hire of the hall, although I suspect that's really very cheap!

We sent out warnings with the invites for children not to come dressed up and to expect to get grubby.

[Amandella]

I used to run an art & craft party business and we used to charge £10 per child - they would do 2 x crafts (to take home) and we'd always put out a massive bit of paper for all the kids to handprint/write messages etc to the birthday child...it always went down well... we live in London so prices might be different elsewhere.
HTH

[jeangenie]

brilliant - thank you all so much (esp you Gillybean, what a fantastically comprehensive and thoughtful answer )

I am in London so will phone the local ceramics cafe and find out what they charge but £10 per child to include all materials sounds about right - it fits in with the £50-70 an hour equation too

Amadella & Gillybean - what kind of things would you do with this age group? I like the dream catchers idea and the t-shirts and will check out yellow moon but any other ideas would be very welcome

it'll be both girls and boys, otherwise I'd do fabric bags or something (not sure the boys would want to do bags, I suppose some might) - maybe I could bring a selection of two or three items...that might work

am going to talk to the mum tomorrow so would like to give her some things to think about...

[jeangenie]

more things I've thought of

what do you think?

• covered notebooks : cover in plain cream fabric - decorate with sequins, fabric paints, pens, buttons, thread whatever...

• covered pen holders - tin cans covered with fabric and decorated as above

• big joint mural on pinned up huge sheet of paper for birthday girl to keep (following on from amandella's earlier idea)

• decorated photo frames - hey, could cut up teh joint mural and each child take home a framed piece of it - could even stamp the date and birthday girls name on ...

ooohh, am getting excited now

Amandella - do you have any other tips seeing as you did this as a business? do you think I'll need a helper with 10 kids of that age? did you fin dit a good business to be in ?(I have regular dreams of dumping my day job!)

[jeangenie]

am looking at yellow moon

• glass painted candle holders look good

also thought maybe beads - to make bracelets and keyrings

will continue rambling on to myself here...it's a good way of getting all my ideas down...feel free to interrupt me

[MadBadandDangeroustoKnow]

We just had an arty-crafty party for our dc.

I used the Baker Ross catalogue (same as Yellow Moon but a bigger range) for most of the supplies. I bought the colour-and-make yourself party bags but they were hopeless - far too small and wouldn't stick together. Although boys are less keen on arty-crafty stuff they did all enjoy painting t-shirts. I no longer use liquid paints after some horrendous damage to clothes (despite aprons) but the fabric pens work well. Cheapest t-shirts I found were at Primark - about £1 each.

Other Baker Ross kits which work well are the mouldable wax candles and the scraperboard bookmarks and other things.

[MadBadandDangeroustoKnow]

We just had an arty-crafty party for our dc.

I used the Baker Ross catalogue (same as Yellow Moon but a bigger range) for most of the supplies. I bought the colour-and-make yourself party bags but they were hopeless - far too small and wouldn't stick together. Although boys are less keen on arty-crafty stuff they did all enjoy painting t-shirts. I no longer use liquid paints after some horrendous damage to clothes (despite aprons) but the fabric pens work well. Cheapest t-shirts I found were at Primark - about £1 each.

Other Baker Ross kits which work well are the mouldable wax candles and the scraperboard bookmarks and other things.

[jeangenie]

trinket boxes - they have porcelain or wooden

face masks to decorate - is 9 too old for this I wonder?

[jeangenie]

thanks MBADTK - will look at baker ross too - tshirts are sounding quite good really! although the pens etc never stay on long after washing do they? or is there some trick I don't know?

[MadBadandDangeroustoKnow]

Ooops. How did that happen?

I would just add - although I'm sure you already know this from art club - that you need to think about what the children can finish in the time. I've been to many parties where at the end there's a pile of half-finished scooby-doos which nobody wants to take home. Also think about whether the children may have to take home things that are covered in wet paint - their beautiful work may get ruined in transit!

[jeangenie]

good point - I do know this but it is something I regularly forget - and the kids at art club are currently working on longer term pieces so they leave them in my studio so in fact it had sort of gone right out of my head!

thanks

[MadBadandDangeroustoKnow]

With the pens, you have to iron the t-shirt before first wear or wash. Ours have always lasted but, then again, they don't get worn that often. As an alternative to paint or pens, Baker Ross have stick-on flowers and jewels, although here too I guess there's a risk that they won't survive being washed.

[vInTaGeVioLeT]

wow jeangenie you are a very brave lady !!!
a couple of ideas for you -
a. marbelling - i've done it with that age kids and younger ,it's easy,fun,fast,cheap and impressive - also you can use the marbelled paper to create cards etc once it's dry - i did it outside and hung all the papers on the line to dry.

b. tye-dye t-shirts - child won't be able to take it home after the party but it's fun to do - fairly cheap especially if you chose a really dark shade but do lots of t-shirts!!!

[jeangenie]

ooh VV marbeling sounds fun - how do you do that then?

I had thought tye dyed tshirts - they could always collect them later and I could do one other craft that they could take home

(when are you running your teach JG how to make lovely cards and labels workshop anyway? I am going to a cardy place tomorrow...any tips on bits and pieces I should get eg how do you make some of your stamped on bits kind of raised and glisteny??? iykwim)

[Orinoco]

Message withdrawn

[vInTaGeVioLeT]

marbelling is easy peasy!
this is how i did it -

1. buy marbelling inks here
2. pour some water into a suitable container[i used a cat litter tray!!!]
3. add a few drops of few colours ink to tray
4. swirl about
5. place copier paper on surface - quickly remove - hang up to dry!
6. repeat step 5 a few times
7. add more ink!!!
8. repeat step 5 etc etc etc!!!

really easy but no fancy party clothes

[vInTaGeVioLeT]

right . . . .

woRkShOp......

raised shiny bits - Anita's 3d clear gloss finish

aged effect on tags - versa color ink in brown applied fairly dry with a fantastix colouring tool.

raised shiny stamped images - clear embossing powder melted with a heat tool[can be done over a toaster!]

HTH x

[gillybean2]

The art club I run is for ages 8-11. We did the dream catchers in an hour session, which was a little rushed, the hardest bit being the threading which most of them needed help with. If we'd had an extra 30 mins it would have been better. So if your party is 2 hrs or more then you'd be ok with this one and probably another quick activity too but be prepared for helping with the threading.

We decorated the dreamcatcher using felt tip pens which kept it nice and simple, bright, and pretty mess free with less tidying up!

I find the boys especially like the metalic effect pens and if they're into art/craft things will try most things as long as it's not too girly.

Another one that the boys especially liked was the design your own jigsaw, though make sure they have a plastic bag or similar to carry it home in or once they take the pieces out of the background they don't stay in very easily! And also the colour in spinning tops which they couldn't get enough of!

The time issue can be a factor, some children will spend ages on something while others rush through it and then sit there saying 'what can i do now?' as I'm sure you've found. The pens (fabric or acrylic) have the added advantage of drying faster than paint as less as causing less mess/spills issues.

If you're going to do a painting actiity definitely do it first and make sure there's room for it to dry.

I suggest planning one main activity such as dream catch, candle holders, t-shirt painting, and then a second quicker activity which you have plenty of spares of so they can do it two or three times (like the spinning tops or design your own jigsaw).

Also decide if you're going to limit the time on the first activity and insist they move on to the second at a set time, or simply leave them to do it and when they're done with the first they move to the second. Letting them take their own time is better I find, but you might need two workspaces going at the same time is all.

Have fun planning it all. The hardest bit is working out which activities to do, so many to choose so little time...
Gilly

[jeangenie]

we've decided on t-shirt tye dying and glass decorating

the tshirts will be the main activity and the glasses set out with stuff to decorate them with (once I figure out what that might be!)

I'll set up 3 or 4 buckets of dye in the back garden and take them through the colour combinations they might expect- will have elastic bands, small stones, needles and thread etc etc etc to do the tying bit - I know pleating can work well too. Any other techniques I could use?

we initially agreed on £10 per child but then I felt a bit bad about that as the mum is going to buy the tshirts/glasses etc so I texted her and said would do it for £80 all in (10 kids) and that the deal is that if its a great success she must tell all her friends! She seems happy with that...

[RosaLuxembunting]

With the tie-dying you should use disposable gloves - the kind that come in hair dying kits - if you can as the dye stains hands for days and days afterwards. Guess how I know this!

[jeangenie]

btw - for anyone doing a party for younger kids - I did one for my DD1 this weekend (she turned 6) - one of the activities I set up was decorating party bags - got those plain brown paper bags with handles, set out a big rug on the grass, plenty of pens, crayons, stickers etc. They set to when they arrived and wrote their names on, then decorated and handed to me when finished. I filled them with a few crafty bits'n'bobs before end of party and gave to them when they were leaving. They all seemed to really enjoy it. Some kids must have spent almost half the party there! I also got some colour in bookmarks for them to decorate and pop in their bags before handing to me...they loved them

[vInTaGeVioLeT]

sounds like she's got a bargain!!
but £80 for you for a couple hours is good too? well it sounds it too me as i earn about £4 per hour L O L

[jeangenie]

aha - thanks for top tip Ms Luxembunting