Friends, every year, one of the things I look forward to the most is the Creators’ Summit at Plaid Headquarters in Georgia. I tell everyone it’s a mandatory business trip, but in reality, it’s more like a really fun craft camp where all the setup and cleanup is done for you and you just get to play all day long making awesome things. And you also get to eat. And eat and eat and eat. But that’s another story.

In addition to learning about and using Plaid’s newest products, we always have a few group activities that challenge us to get creative together. Last year, we had a contest to see how each team transformed the same basic vignette using Plaid paints, stencils, and more. This year, we did a really fun “Musical Paintings” activity where we all contributed to ten different abstract paintings.

This would be a fantastic idea for a party, whether it’s a kids’ birthday or a grownup “paint and sip” alternative you want to host for some friends. Here’s what you need to do this at home:

Supplies:

Wood Frame Canvases {1 per person}
FolkArt Brushes, assorted sizes
FolkArt Acrylic paints {1 color per person}
Timer

Here’s how it works. Each of us started with a blank canvas, a few brushes, and one color of FolkArt Acrylic paint. The Plaid staff played music for about 30 seconds, which was our time to paint whatever we wanted on our canvas in our chosen color. My color was a light teal and I made a few shapes that resembled waves. Some of the other girls did bold lines, small dashes, and squares. Then, when the music stopped, we kept our brushes and our one color of paint, but passed our canvas to the left. The music played for another 30 seconds, and this time we added something to the canvas that had been passed to us.

Since the paintings were all abstract, all we had to worry about was adding shapes and color; no special skills required! We kept passing the canvases around the circle until each of us had added something to all ten paintings. Then, we got our own back. Here’s mine…see the light teal waves I started with underneath everything? Not only does each person end up with a fun and colorful painting to take home, it’s also a fun reminder of your friends! When I look at the bright orange, I think of Bev, who used it as her signature color. Erin was hot pink, Amy Bell was light pink, Abbey was dark teal, Sam was gold, and so on… Seeing the colors all together reminds me of being in Georgia with my dear friends and of all the fun we had.

When the paintings were dry, we popped them into their wooden frames {you can get these at Target!} and took a quick photo of them all together before we brought them to our own individual homes. Isn’t it neat to see how unique each one turned out? It was so much fun to do, and it wasn’t stressful at all, because there was no way to do it wrong!

What do you think? Would this be something you and your friends would enjoy doing? It’s also a super introduction to abstract art for kiddos!

Don’t forget, if you like it, you ought to put a pin on it!