I wanted this rainbow birthday party to feel fresh, modern, and HAPPY! 🌈

Colorful balloons, streamers, and paper were my key design elements. For the art element, we had coloring placemats, art-inspired party activities, and a favor/treat station that literally looks like a paint palette!

Read on for 10 creative rainbow & art party ideas that you can recreate for your own celebration…

Modern Art Party Printables

My Modern Art printables (as seen in this party) are available in our store. Use them to add tons of style and personalized details to your party! Edit the text yourself – whenever you want – with our easy online customizer. 🙌

1. Rainbow Cake

You don’t have to be a pro baker to whip up a fun birthday cake! This playful cake topper features printable paper balloon designs hot-glued to bamboo skewers:

To decorate the cake, I used kitchen shears to chop up Rainbow Twizzlers into giant “sprinkles”. These provided a nice size contrast to the regular rainbow sprinkles.

For the inside of the cake, I used a rainbow cake boxed mix which produced beautiful, vibrant colors but didn’t rise much at all.

So… I used ANOTHER box of cake mix (in white) to bake an additional layer to go between the rainbow layers. This gave the cake some much-needed height plus a happy silver lining: a “double rainbow” inside the cake! 😉

2. Coloring Placemats

Coloring is always a great way to keep little ones entertained! These cloud-shaped placemats come in 2 designs and are included in the printables.

Note: The placemats are formatted on 11×17 paper. I printed them as black & white engineering prints at Staples. You can fit 2-up on their 18×24″ paper, which makes them less than $1 each.

3. Guest of Honor Chair + Photo Backdrop

Rainbow balloons, circle garlands, and honeycomb balls make for a happy-go-lucky photo backdrop and gift-opening spot!

For the circle garlands, I used craft circle punches to cut circles from colored card stock, then sewed them together with my extremely limited sewing machine skills.

You can also use hot glue to make the garlands, as demonstrated in this other rainbow chair design.

I used 1.5” circle punches for the smaller garlands shown here. A combination of 2” and 3” circle punches were used for the big ones.

4. A Colorful Kids Table

The place settings on the kids’ table featured the coloring placemats that I mentioned earlier, crayon packs, birthday hats, and kazoos. What’s a kids’ party without lots of NOISE, right? 😉

Birthday Cake Centerpiece
For the centerpiece, I designed an artsy “faux birthday cake” made from floral foam bricks wrapped in crepe paper.

The crepe paper was secured with straight pins that had colorful tops and kinda looked like sprinkles! White tissue fringe was used for the “frosting”.

To make the colorful “candles” for the top, I slid wooden dowels into twisting balloons, then garnished them with pieces of party straws. The “candle flames” were small balloons tied to the top.

5. Rainbow Confetti Popcorn

Kids will go crazy for this sweet and colorful treat!

To make it, add approximately 1/2 cup of white melting chocolate per 8 cups of popped kettle corn or regular popcorn. Pour the melted chocolate on top of the popcorn and toss gently to coat. Spread the popcorn out evenly on a baking sheet, then sprinkle generously with rainbow sprinkles. Let dry for 2-3 hours.

6. Rainbow Party Drinks

The signature drink was a “Rainbow Skies” Party Punch with blue fruit punch, vanilla ice cream “clouds”, and colorful chopped fruit.

The punch was served in clear cups that I embellished with more twisting balloons (the kind you use to make balloon animals).

Colorful, sparkly craft poms were the perfect ingredient for fun party straws!

7. Rainbow Rock Painting Activity

For this craft, you’ll need to collect or buy a bunch of large, smooth stones for your guests to paint. You can also purchase rocks that are pre-painted with a matte black coating (or add one yourself), which will make the bright paint colors really POP!

For the craft supplies, you’ll need kid-friendly paint in a rainbow of colors, small paintbrushes, and any extras you want to include, like rhinestones or googly eyes.

Helpful Tips:

1. Paper cups filled with water are helpful for rinsing brushes.
2. Paper plates are great for drying time and for saving your tablecloth from paint splatters!

8. Rainbow Sand Art Activity

Kids will love making their own sand art creations to take home and display!

You’ll need colored sand, clear containers with tops, big spoons, and FUNNELS. Choose from plastic or glass containers, depending on the ages of your guests. I used inexpensive glass bud vases (purchased at Ikea) plus cork bottle tops.

To fill the bottles, insert the funnel into the bottle top and pour the sand in slowly. Alternate the colors often to create a pretty layered look.

Older kids should be able to pour the sand themselves. For younger kids, it’s best to have them pick out the sand colors and help by holding the funnel in place while an adult pours the sand. You can also let younger kids spoon the sand into the funnel while you hold it.

9. Paint Palette Favors Station

Since I partnered with Hershey’s on this party (in celebration of their shiny new Hershey’s KISS colors) – I wanted to design a candy station that really made the individual colors stand out.

The result was this fun “paint palette” inspired favor station!

 

10. Modern Art Party Printables

Printables are my favorite *secret weapon* for adding unique style to any celebration! Click here to customize my Modern Art collection for your own party – instantly, online. 🤗

Hope you found some inspiration here for your own rainbow art party!

For more inspiration like this, check out our Rainbow Party archives.