Just Say No to Crap Party Favors

First of all, if you are one of those that likes to throw a bunch of junk in a bag for my kid to take home from a party, don't be offended!  Keep in mind that I'm extremely anal organized about our game room.  It's hard for me to categorize 'tiny hand clapper'.  I mean, really, what container does that go in?  In order to make you feel even better about yourself because you don't have nearly the amount of crazy that I do, I'll list some of my container titles..."Star Wars Costumes", "Star Wars Toys" (just had a little argument with myself about that punctuation, and quite frankly, I'm beyond exhausted, so it's staying as is...plural possessive??), "Small Piece Puzzles", "Large Piece Puzzles"...and it goes on.  So, you can see my crazy dilemma.  So, what happens is I let little man play with all the crap toys for a week.  My level of discomfort is crazy high, by the way, during that whole week.  Then, I sneakily start removing them.  One by one.  Does he notice?  Usually.  There might be some white lies...I plead the 5th. 

Ok, I know...how the hell does this relate to Pinterest?  I'm getting there.  Don't worry. 

While on Pinterest I saw a canvas painted colorfully except for a name that was 'white'.  I pinned it away thinking I would use it at some point.  I went to the chic's blog, but couldn't find the exact post, but it's not rocket science.  Here's the picture I pinned.

Baby's first birthday was a few weeks ago and I was struggling with what I wanted to give/do since we'd have a wide age range of kiddos.  I was able to grab a 10 pack of canvases for $20 and bought a few tubes of paint along with some extra brushes.  When each kid arrived, I had the parent use painter's tape to mark off the kid's initial.  I taped down several plastic table cloths on my kitchen floor and let the kids have at it.  I only have pictures of the end product because I always forget to take pictures! 

Long story short - the kids had a great time painting and they took home something that could go in their room or could be reused (hello, repaint that canvas)!  Most importantly, no more of the 'goody bag' chaos! 

PS - used baby's footprints for his painting!