An easy Frozen party activity using small canvases, paint, and a Cricut

If you’re planning a Frozen-themed birthday party, you probably already have plenty of ideas for decorations, desserts, and party favors. But one of my favorite things to add to a kids’ birthday party is an activity that doubles as a party favor, and this DIY Olaf painting craft was perfect!

A few days before the party, I was scrolling through Instagram when I came across Coles Crafting Corner. She shared a tutorial for creating your own canvas painting, and I immediately knew I wanted to recreate it for my daughter’s birthday party. It turned out to be the perfect indoor activity on a hot day, and kids of all ages enjoyed it. Even better, it was inexpensive to put together, and my Cricut did most of the work for me!

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What You’ll Need

Supplies

• Small white canvases
• Black permanent vinyl
• Cricut machine
• Mini heat press (I’ve heard you could use an iron as well)
• Weeder tool
• Parchment paper
• Craft paint
• Paint brushes
• Cups or containers for water
• A small towel (to stabilize the back of the canvas while ironing on the design)
• Table covering
• Optional: disposable aprons or old shirts for the kids

I found the canvases and paint/paint brush set at Dollar Tree, which helped keep the cost down for making eight of these. I couldn’t believe my luck when I found these pastel paint sets that went perfectly with the theme! If you’ve been collecting Oui jars knowing that they’ll come in handy one day, today is that day! I have a bunch of them in my cabinet, and they worked perfectly for everyone’s water cup.

How to Make an Olaf Painting Canvas

1. Choose Your Canvas

Start with small white canvases.

I recommend using smaller canvases for a birthday party because they’re easier for little hands to paint and they don’t require nearly as much paint.

They’re also much easier to transport home after the party!

If you’re making these for a party, I would prepare one canvas per child plus a couple of extras. You know there will inevitably be one canvas that gets knocked over, painted beyond recognition, or a last-minute RSVP.

2. Create Your Olaf Design

Next, you’ll need an Olaf design that can be cut with your Cricut.

You can either search on Cricut Design Space for an Olaf cutout or purchase one off of Etsy and upload it to Canva. I did the latter.

The important thing is to keep the design relatively simple. You don’t want a complicated design with lots of tiny pieces of vinyl because the goal is to create an outline that the kids can easily paint around.

Resize the design so it fits nicely in the center of your canvas.

A little tip:

Before cutting all of your vinyl, make one test canvas first.

I learned this lesson the hard way with crafts before! It’s much easier to discover that your design is too large, too small, or needs adjusting when you’ve only made one rather than 10.

3. Cut Olaf From Black Vinyl

Before sending your Olaf design to your Cricut, be sure to turn on the “Mirror” setting. Since you’re applying the vinyl to the canvas using transfer tape, mirroring the design ensures it will be oriented correctly once it’s transferred onto the canvas.

In Cricut Design Space, click Make It, then toggle “Mirror” on before continuing to the cutting screen. You’ll want to do this every time you cut the design so your Olaf faces the correct direction when it’s transferred to the canvas.

Quick tip: If your design has words, names, or another element that has a definite direction, always double-check the mirrored preview before cutting.

When placing the vinyl on your mat, make sure the shiny side is facing down so the correct side is being cut.

Remove the vinyl from your mat and weed away the excess vinyl so that only the Olaf design remains.

4. Press the Vinyl Onto the Canvas

Once the vinyl is positioned correctly, place the black vinyl side directly onto the canvas. Place a towel underneath the canvas to provide a little extra padding and parchment paper over your vinyl. Next, use your mini heat press to firmly adhere the vinyl to the canvas.

Slowly peel away the backing to make sure the vinyl is firmly adhered to the canvas. If any areas begin to lift, simply place the backing back down and go over those spots again with the mini heat press.

5. Set Up Your Painting Station

Now for the fun part!

Set out each canvas with a selection of paint colors and paint brushes.

For our Frozen party, I used a soft pastel color palette to match the rest of the decorations.

You can absolutely change up the colors depending on your party.

For a more traditional Frozen look, you could stick with different shades of blue and white. Or, if you’re going for a softer Frozen winter wonderland as I did, pastel pink, purple, and blue look beautiful together.

I also placed a small cup of water at each painting station.

6. Let the Kids Paint Olaf!

And then…let them get creative!

The best part of this activity is that there really isn’t a right or wrong way to do it.

The kids can paint the background, Olaf, around Olaf, or basically wherever they want.

Some children may carefully paint inside the lines. Others may cover the entire canvas in purple paint.

Both are perfect.

The vinyl Olaf outline gives them a basic design to work with while still leaving plenty of room for creativity.

The Cutest Frozen Party Favor

One of my favorite things about this craft was that it served two purposes.

It was an activity and a party favor.

Instead of trying to come up with another little toy or trinket for the kids to take home, they created their own souvenir during the party.

And I think that’s one of the best kinds of party favors.

It’s inexpensive, personalized, and actually has a little memory attached to it.

Our Frozen Birthday Party

This Olaf painting craft was one of three Frozen-inspired activities we had at my daughter’s third birthday party. We also had a Pin the Nose on Olaf game and an indoor snowball fight using fluffy faux snowballs.

The painting station was definitely one of my favorites, though.

It fit perfectly with the soft winter wonderland theme I was going for, and the kids loved having something they could create themselves.

If you’re planning a Frozen birthday party, you can see how I pulled all of the decorations, activities, food, and desserts together in my full post: A Wintery Fun Frozen Birthday Party.