• Kids can laugh it up making messy party invitations.kids image by Marzanna Syncerz from <a href='http://www.fotolia.com'>Fotolia.com</a>
  
  Messy parties live up to their title. Kids gather to make a mess, and the grownups not only allow it, but make it possible. It doesn't get any better for a kid than that---unless you throw in ice cream...really messy ice cream. Send messy party invitations that prepare invitees for a good mess of a party. Gather the kids for a "Let's Mess Up the Invitations" mini-party. Use watercolors and finger paints to engage children in the invitation-making event---a messy party in its own right.
  
  

Free-Form Invitations

• Card stock, watercolor paints and brushes make tools for kids to create handmade messy party invitations. Circle your kids and their friends (if you like) around a table. Protect the table and floor with vinyl or newspapers. Tell the kids to have fun and do what comes naturally. Make a mess and have them sign their artistic creations. After the paint dries, the website Boston Mamas suggests printing party details on pieces of vellum. Overlay the children's art work with the vellum by gluing along the top of the vellum.
  
  

Hand-Print Invitations

• Hand prints make a mess and make messy party invitations.full hand print on silicon image by Andrew Brown from <a href='http://www.fotolia.com'>Fotolia.com</a>
  
  Parents get the job of writing messy party-invitation details while children engage in the best part of the invitation-making process. Set up a free-for-all invitation creation zone outside, if weather permits, or at a table protected from the ensuing mess. Lay out card stock, washable paint, glitter, stars, glue sticks and wet cloths for cleaning hands. Pour paints on paper plates. Tell the kids to place their hands, palms down, on the paint of any color, making sure to get paint on their fingertips and palms. They can put as many hand prints on the card stock as they like and add any painted decorations. Insert a piece of card stock with invitation details after the paint and glue dry.
  
  

Poetic Invitations

• Provide finger paints for your children and their friends to adorn their creative messy party invitations. Once your children have turned over creations to you, add a poetic touch of your own. Write on vellum or card stock inserts a messy party invitation poem to attract invitees. A contributor on the family-oriented website, Fertile Thoughts, offers this suggested poem:
  
  "We are throwing a big party,
  
  What else would we do?
  
  We will be painting with pudding,
  
  and paints as well
  
  We're going to get messy,
  
  and its going to be swell.
  
  We might get dirty, and maybe even mucky.
  
  So please bring a change of clothes so you don't have to stay yucky."