It"s a Puzzle, It's a Painting, No It's a Christmas Present!

I admit it is not often when I take to painting. When I do it generally requires less thought and more action which is sometimes difficult for me when I am working on many projects (more work and less creative) than I probably should be. I talked my mother into hanging all the paintings that I did a couple of years ago on one wall in the guest bedroom of her house which left another wall more than blank. She was not happy about it and I promised her to make a new creation for that wall.

So a day or so before Christmas it was time to get started. The plan was to take several canvases, of different sizes (okay I had two sizes in each thing I opened so that is where the different sizes came from), and create a piece that would work if all the canvases were next to each other or apart from each other. In other words each canvas could stand on its own as a painting. I knew my mother preferred more contemporary designs and really seemed to like my splatter pieces. I used the colors in the room and in a glass frame that I get her in Italy as the color palette for the design. I actually sat down and sketched out the geometric design and went from there.

My acrylic paints were not being nice to me. The colors were clumping and I ended up smoothing them out with a thinner to make it work better. I worked in one color at a time and did as many shapes as I could with some of the shapes being on more than one canvas, then went back in to fill in the spaces. After getting everything together and letting it dry it was time for the fun part. I went outside and laid the entire piece on the ground and began the splatter process with my acrylic inks. I was hoping for a more metallic look out of some of the inks but they seemed to match my paint colors fairly well and I was pleased with the overall design.

After everything dried I wrapped each piece individually so there were several gifts to open on Christmas Day. My mother seemed to like the first one and second but then got a little overwhelmed that there were so many. When I laid them all out as one painting for her, she really seemed to like the design and how it all flows together. However framing and hanging is what she is concerned about now. I might end up coming up with a new design on the wall when I get done with the framing and hanging...it might be most interesting. I will let you know.

Sparkling Holiday Theme

I write these blog posts as I complete projects. However, sometimes, like with this post, I will post it long after I write it because I do not want the recipient of this gift to see the post and ruin the surprise. I found this wooden cutout of a candy cane at a national arts and crafts store. When I saw it I immediately knew I could do something with it, I just wasn't sure what. When I got home I knew this would be a decorative gift for my mother because she loves to decorate for all holidays but especially Christmas. However I wanted this to be an extra sparkly piece of decor so I came up with a shimmery plan. The entire piece got a base coat of white paint. After drying I painted the White strips and added white glitter to the wet paint. After waiting for it all to dry I discarded the excess glitter and repeated with the red stripes. After getting everything glittered and striped it was time to outline. Thanks to a fairly thin paint pen I was able to define the candy cane strips. Then after all was dry I spray painted thin coats of acrylic across the entire piece (probably sprayed it four or five times letting it dry between coats). It made the entire piece glossy and helped ensure the glitter will stay on the piece rather than fly around and get on everything else in sight.
Although rather well protected I would not display this outside in the elements, maybe under a roof or a protected area outside but not directly in the elements. It would probably be best served being stuck in an indoor plant to spread the holiday spirit and let it last even longer. As far as the Christmas present...my mother seemed to like it. However she seemed more surprised that I made it rather than having bought it that way. So Merry Christmas and I hope your holidays are sweet.

Snowmen Sticking In

Several years ago at a craft show my mother purchased me a wooden spoon with a snowman painted on the handle. I absolutely love the spoon and it just adds a little smile of happiness in my kitchen during the holiday season. In an effort to share this happiness I have tried to recreate that design on wooden wear of my own.
Purchasing some wooden salad forks (I have to admit I could not find wooden spoons at a reasonable price that were shaped like I wanted) I went to work on designing. A red background was what I needed to create my snowy design. Snowmen with scarves blowing in the wind, and a few snowballs (in case of a snowball fight) add a little whismy to this everlasting snow storm.
I have to admit painting on the round was a little difficult and a few lessons were learned. This is only something that can be accomplished a few paint strokes at a time. Patience is involved and it was fun to do. The forks will be priced at $5 each, and I hope soon to be able to find spoons to add to my collection.

Just Hanging Around

Every once in awhile I like to think that I am creative at something else. In the spirit of Christmas, and the upcoming craft show that is part of the Historic Homes Christmas tour, I have been knocking around with something new. I found wood plaques at a local craft store and couldn't help but purchase them. I hoped that as I held on to them they would speak to me. In all honesty I do that with a lot of things and nothing happens, so I end up collecting a lot of stuff. However in this case I thought I would try some cute little holiday door hangers and I think the idea works.
So I pulled out the paints and started working. I chose traditional colors for the background (red, green, white, and blue) and started painting. Now mind you it took about three coats to get it just the right color but that was just the background, I still had to decorate. Now what says Christmas? Is cute? And will allow my limited art talents to paint it on a piece of wood and look like something people would want to hang in their homes? So sayings, snowflakes and snowmen came to mind. I have to admit the first batch I painted ended up having to be redone because when I went to poly them the polyurethane was not mixed well and turned everything yellow. So a sanding block and a few hours later it was time to start again.
The first batch came out as planned with a couple of big snowflakes, a snowman on the hill, and Merry Christmas. I could not resist a let it snow, and Shhhhhh Listening for Santa sayings either. I did come across a plaque that looks like an old wooden danger sign and wanted to have a little fun with it. So in my best five year old writing skills I put something on that there some five year olds that I know might write, "Dear Santa, Define good..." That sign had it's own string strung through ti. The others I matched different types of ribbon to and was trying to come up with a way to secure it. Brass thumb tacks seemed to be the perfect answer. They went in easily, don't pucker or tear the ribbon, and can be removed if the customer wants to place a different ribbon on the piece or wants to display it in another manner.
The last one that I finished in time for the craft show was actually inspired by a cake I did recently. If you look on my cake blog, Custom Cakes 4 You, you will see a post titled Cake Designer Meets Baker/Decorator for Dream Cake. In it I used a scroll design to decorate the cake. I tried to use the same concept on this door hanger. With the word Noel I used a green glitter paint pen to create shimmery green scrolls on this door hanger. Now some may thing it is terribly busy while others like the fact that the scrolls are done in a variety of widths and densities to frame the Christmas Sentiment.
If you are wondering the door hangers will be selling for any where from $2-$4 dollars each depending on the size and time it took for me to create it. Even if I don't sell a single one, it has helped me get into the holiday spirit.

Surprise???

All I can say about surprises is my father's green surprise Father's Day shirt.  You see, when I was much younger (probably about 12), on a trip to Virginia over Father's day my mother, thinking she was slick, slid my father's surprise gift into a shoe bag.  His gift was a green polo shirt.  It sort of stuck out from the shoes and my father, whose job it was to load and unload the car of course saw it when he loaded the bag in the car, but chose not to say anything.  Over the course of the 10 hour trip my mother was dropping hints and trying to tease my father who refused to play the game, making my mother more smug as we drove.  Finally when we arrived in Virginia and were unloading the car, my mother dropped one last remark for which my father proudly announced, "Are you by chance referring to this green polo shirt in the shoe bag?"  Oh it was not pretty watching her face turn red, as she sputtered, and just finally without anything to say in response let out a few choice words and got mad at him for discovering her surprise.  When she finally realized he knew from the beginning and was playing with her the entire trip, it just fanned the flames even more.  From that point on she stopped trying to surprise because she realized he was pretty quick and could figure it out with little effort if he wanted to.  It was also one of those stories that came up time and time again and the surprise green father's day shirt will go down in family history.
I tell you this story, because one it is now my job to repeat that story and allow it to go down in history, and two because it shows how surprises work in my family.  My mother, still trying to keep tabs on me realized that I was spending an awful lot of time at the pottery painting place in Fayetteville and might be working on more than one thing. 

Grapes Tile

To throw her off I made a tile that I will work into a tray, I think (or should I say that is the plan right now).  However she had a pretty good idea that something else was up.  So I regret to say that I have post dated this post because she would snoop the post and try to find her surprise, and I am not willing to make it that easy for her.  The first trivet I started working on was the one for her, however they ran out of a couple of the paints I needed.  I painted a cream background, with dark brown edges and added her initials in an Asian inspired font.  Then robin egg blue dots, to match the writing were added to the edge and chocolate brown dots were added to the middle.  Firing such a piece with a lighter color on a darker one could offer a complex situation and may not work.  However because of using the wooden end of the paint brush to add my dots, it worked out really well and I am excited to say I was able to offer her a partial surprise.  She knew I made her something but did not know what I had made.  Thus when she opened it she still had to make the surprise face and determine if she liked it, which I think she did.  I think the key to surprises in my family is just let it happen, don't give hints or clues, because someone will search for it.

A New Passion

Yes, it is true. I love all things crafty. As a matter of fact there are few crafty things that I will not attempt. Thus with the opportunity to teach an arts and crafts day camp as part of my day job I was able to introduce our youth to something I have not done before, pottery. Let me back up. The youth did not throw clay, nor do I. We decorate the preformed product. For them it was plates, bowls, or mugs (part of the group rate). When I went back a week later to pick up their finished products I was able to pick out my own to do.

Let me start at the beginning of my adventure. I travelled to Fayetteville, North Carolina to a place called "Just Claying Around." Once inside you notice tables with paint brushes, bowls of water, and a colorful plate full of numbers. The walls are lined with shelves that are loaded with various items begging for color and personality. The items range from small tiles to very large items, each with various prices. The price includes all the paint you can think to use as well as glazing and firing costs. The process is simple. You pick the item you want. The colorful plates are samples of all the paints they have. You pick your colors and paint lightest to darkest. Each time you paint you have to wait for it to dry. After about 20-30 minutes you paint over it again giving it three to four coats of paint to make sure it is solid. When you are done you pay for the item. Then it takes two to three days of drying before they dip it in a special glaze. Then it drys again before being placed in the kiln and being fired. I asked about things shattering and they said all of their products come from the same place to ensure the moisture content is even in everything they fire and very rarely do they have accidents in the kiln.

So about a week after painting (and let me say when you paint you are going on a vision because it does not look like you plan when you originally paint it) you get a call and go back to pick up your finished product. I actually started with two trivets, one for my mother and one for me. I found that having two projects to work on took the boredom out of drying. It so happened that I ran out of the paint colors I chose for my mother's trivet so my got done first. They wrapped up the other one and let me take it home to bring it back another time to finish.

For my trivet there were lots of choices and I was not quite sure what to do. I found a speckled off white for the background which ended up having a very colorful affect. Then I took a bright red and painted the edges and my initials on the trivet. I did not know when I painted it that the speckles would come through the red but it gives an neat and unexpected affect to my finished project. I picked up my finished project and took the opportunity to finish my mother's trivet as well as a tile that I hope to use in a tray. I will let you know how it turns out.

Stocking Stuffers

You may remember a post I did not long ago about making ornaments for my mother's tree. Some were ceramic, that I added a little character too. Well when it came time to stuff stockings at the office I could not think of anything better than a stocking, stocking ornament that is. I made one for each person and put their name on it. Now you might be wondering about the color since one is green. That went to Sweet Aggie. If you know Aggie you already know what her ornament is green if you don't know Aggie you need to know her, trust me it is an experience you will never forget. Aggie is a Program Associate with our county 4-H program. She has a favorite saying when she meets people, the first time or again, and that is that her blood is green, 4-H green. Therefore it is only appropriate that she have a green stocking while everyone else had red. It was just a little something for an incredible team of individuals.

Trying to Fix the Tree

If you noticed my post from yesterday my mother's tree was in need of a little homemade love. After all it is the ornaments with a story that make the tree special because each one has a memory of its own. While we were at Michael's we also picked up some clear balls and flat ones as well. Inside of each of the round balls (and some of the flat ones too) I trickled paint and swirled it on the inside. The designs are truly unique and homemade. Also in search of some tree bling some of the flat ones received one color of paint and glitter on half of the ornament on the outside. Each one is different and made with love. Once up it gave the tree a little more color and a personal touch that it was missing with just store bought ornaments before.

Needed a Name

I love Christmas. It is by far my favorite holiday. I love decorating the tree and the house for the holidays. I am sure I get this from my mother who loves to decorate the tree and the house. Growing up there were rules to decorating the tree as I got old enough to decorate that were shared with me. Things like two ornaments that are alike can not be placed next to each other. Two of the same color should not be too close, and you have to balance the ornaments out from the front and the back of the branches. Smaller ornaments go to the top, larger ones at the bottom. All of this has been ingrained in my brain which made this year's assignment so difficult.

My mother moved a couple of years ago and some things had to go to storage. Apparently the ornaments went to storage, but not her tree. So the day after Thanksgiving I was informed that the tree was going up. When I asked about the ornaments she said she had bought some new ones. Suddenly from behind the couch appears a large box which has markings on it that indicated that there were 100 ornaments in the box. All of the ornaments were red and gold. After Erica (the very nice lady who helps mom) and I figured out how to put up the tree and plug it all in it was time to decorate. Now here comes my problem, red and gold ornaments needed to be spread out on the tree but I had to make sure red was not near red and gold not near gold. When I got done I announced there is too much red and gold on this tree and it needs some personalization. To my mother that meant, let's go shopping.

On our tour of the city we stopped at several places and picked up some cute ornaments that were not balls or red and gold. Then we hit Michael's. There we found ceramic ornaments in the shape of a snowman, star, and stocking. A few Sharpie paint pens later, and voila! We had some personalized ornaments that made the tree a little less commercial and a little more personalized. If you are wondering the stocking got Manny's name, because every grand dog should have their own stocking to mark their place in the family. Now this can be considered a family tree.

Painting in a Gift this Holiday Season

I am always trying to expand my craftiness. recently my mother moved and has several items in storage including items for her guest bedroom. So to get the room ready for guests she ran out and purchased the most appealing bed in a bag that she could find. However she found accessories for the room and things to put on the walls were lacking. Everything she found was rather pricey and it was driving me slightly nuts that she was considering on spending that kind of money on things she really didn't care about. So to solve her problem I offered up some of my water colors that are done and sitting in a drawer.
After bringing back a set of pillow cases and realizing how modern this room was I did not think any of my water colors would work (they are mostly beaches, lighthouses, hot air balloons, that type of thing). With an art set sitting in my all purpose room screaming my name it did not take long to come up with the idea of designing and completing paintings for this room.

I bought some canvas and went to planning. Actually it did not take long for the idea to hit me. It took forever to find the time to do them. So in my traditional Christmas Eve Christmas morning project mode I set forth to do these paintings. I waited until midnight Christmas morning when my mother had fallen asleep (yes, I knew she was asleep because I could hear the snoring the entire time I did this), and gathered up my painting items and spread out across my kitchen. I set to work lining things up, matching colors, figuring out the design and then had at it. I mixed colors as I went and enjoyed the entire experience with the stripes and circles.
I had also located some very small canvas that I used to paint a complementary design to go with the three other paintings. Although the lines are not perfect and the circles are not perfect I think that adds to the charm of the pieces. For my first acrylic paintings I am fairly pleased. The idea is that they can be hung together in a series or separately. Whatever mom would like to do.

By four a.m. the canvas was set out to dry in the multipurpose room and I was headed to bed, only to get up four hours later to open presents and present the artwork to my mother. At the end of the present session I made her close her eyes and I brought them out. She knew immediately that they were for her spare room and asked where I bought them from (which could be a sign she wanted to return them...) I told her I had painted them. She quizzed me on when did I have time to do it. I would not fess up on that one (of course if she reads this the jig is up). I did put them back out to determine if I like them or not and I think I do like them. I also think I may try this endeavor again in the future.

Crafty Building Blocks

In case you haven't noticed I like the idea of being crafty. That is sort of like, I like the idea of playing golf. I attempt it and every once in a blue moon I have a straight shot or sink an amazing putt but all in all, it is more that I like the idea of doing it and am not that good at doing it. My crafting is the same way. Sometimes what I am making looks like I want it to, and other times it falls short.

Although I love the idea of turning glass blocks into works of art, I must
admit I am not sure that I am that good at it. Once again that isn't going to stop me. After attempting 16 4-H clovers for work (we used the blocks with battery tea lights in them for decorations for our annual Volunteer Banquet) I decided to branch out. I have two people that I work with that I always want to create unique and wonderful gifts for because they are truly to unique and wonderful people. So for them I set out to create something different. One likes and collects Santas (she actually has more than 100 different Santa Clauses and they are really cool), the other has a thing for Dale Earnhardt Jr. So I painted the blocks with a stained glass paint one in a star shaped Santa and the other with the car number of Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (88).

I stuffed the blocks with 100 clear white Christmas lights and they will shine just like a tree, especially at night. Although they don't look exactly like I had hoped...I hope it will bring some joy when they look at them unique and shining...just like them.

Burning it Up

Part of what I love about crafting is being able to put your heart into something and give it to someone else. My favorite is when it is something that they have looked at and commented how neat it is or when you just make something and surprise them.
On a recent trip to Lowes (where I should probably not be allowed to go because I see too many items I "need") I found an item on sale. Oval shaped pieces of red oak and poplar that I knew I could use (even if I wasn't sure how). After thinking on it, the inspiration and designs hit me. I took the center part of the North Carolina 4-H Centennial logo and designed an NC with the 4-H Clover in it and transferred the designs to the wood. I found my wood burning tool and quickly plugged it in slowly and carefully working my way around the designs. After sanding and touch up I decided the Centennial logo needed color so I started painting. When everything dried I went ahead and used some golden pecan stain to give it a little color. A little polyurethane on top and voila, two 4-H exclusive decorative pieces.
I took them to the North Carolina State 4-H Volunteer Leaders Conference and donated them to the county store. The store is one of three big fundraisers that the members of the North Carolina 4-H Volunteers Leaders' Association put together during this weekend event. They sold for $5.00 each, with the money going to a wonderful organization.