Couples everywhere celebrate their love and affection towards each other on February 14th each year. Yet, the 13th of February is what draws our attention the most. For this is the most sacred of days for female friendships: Galentine’s Day! Begun by the fictional character (though real in our hearts) Leslie Knope of Parks and Rec fame, Galentine’s Day is a celebration focused on getting together with our gal pals and basking in female empowerment.
To create the perfect Galentine’s Day celebration, first put together your guest list with all your close gal pals. Scheduling the actual time/date can vary wildly depending on your schedules, so be flexible. Whether you choose an intimate girl’s night or a large brunch party – do what feels good for you and your friends. A crucial part of this holiday is a craft that empowers you and your guests! See below suggestions, but remember that the sky is the limit and you can take these ideas and adjust them to fit your party perfectly.
Tradesies
Encourage all participants of the party to bring a painting idea for the wine and paint portion of the evening. To help support any friends who may be stuck on what to paint, it’s also a good idea to find some inspiration ideas on Pinterest and have a few idea printouts available. If you have easels available at your disposal, have them set up in advance, along with a mixture of paints, brushes, and cocktails and/or mocktails. Enjoy everybody’s company while you paint, and don’t forget to have a great playlist going to keep the energy up! When all participants are complete with their creations, put everybody’s names on pieces of paper and place them in a bowl. Passing around the bowl, have each participant choose a piece. The name they choose is whose painting they go home with!
Intention Painting
Have a few canvases prepped with some type of background – either solid colors or even splatter painting and have them dried by the time everybody shows up. Make sure you have enough sharpies for each party-goer and spend some time writing down on the canvas your intentions for the year. Really think about what you want to accomplish in your year, and the positive thoughts you want to send out into the universe. When you have completely filled the canvas with your intentions, pick out a few words that you want to stand out and paint over the rest of them – either with a solid color or a washed down paint to give a sheer semi-opacity look. Continue to decorate the painting with splatter or even glitter until you feel proud of it. Each participant can then take this home and hang it up in their space to empower them to follow their dreams.
Affirmation Collage
Have everybody at the party write a few positive adjectives to describe each person at the table. You can choose the amount of adjectives based on how many people are at the party, and how big the collages are that you want to complete. Each person should come prepared with a printed out photo of themselves, in which they feel powerful or beautiful, or just good about themselves. On a piece of paper, glue the photo and then build a collage surrounding it using the adjectives as well as any additional medium desired. Suggestions for additional supplies for collage building are old magazines/books, glitter, confetti, scrapbook paper, etc. Pro-Tip: if you want to be extra (in the spirit of Leslie Knope), supply an art mat and photo frame to send each of your gal pals home with a literal masterpiece of themselves.
