Some thing’s never change

Well at least something’s haven’t changed as I return to work in my art area…

My work space still gets invaded with fury helpers minutes after I step into it and you know what? I would t have it any other way.

Hand Made Party invites

My husband was worried, and rightfully so, when I announced that I wanted to hand made the invitations for our sons 1st Birthday party.  The concern was that I rarely finish anything :). 
It got worse when I started cutting out and glue together a dozen tiny trucks and excavators but I got it done just in time with a few extras for decorating the house with.
I wanted something special for him and he like trucks, just trucks, not chuck the truck or whatever.  I do t encourage him to watch tv so he doesn’t know who or wat that all is.  So most of the store bought theme items were out of the question.

So pleased with the results.

Birch tree for baby

 In addition to the letters we added an actual tree to baby’s room.  Decorated with nature things and acting as a night light.  The rocking chair will go under it, Giving baby something to look at during those late night feelings.

Before:
And after!  
 

Birtch bark letters

 Our nursery has a nature theme to it so I got some letter from the craft store and decorated them to put on the wall in the babies room.

  
I painted the white first then added a watered down brown and then a watered down off white or yellow to create the under lying color.

Dark lines went on next for the texture then I covered it with a watery glue and white tissue paper, several layers thick.

    
Trimmed the excess off once it dried.

Compared it to actual birth bark to see how I did.

  
Then hung it on the wall for baby! :). He is really fueling my creativity these days.  
 

Painting Easter Eggs with the kids

  

Yes even the furry child, it seems no one in this house can do arts and crafts without his ‘help’ lol. Last year the kids did a dozen small fake eggs.  This we consolidated but going with on big egg each, from Walmart.  

Sadly I am starting to realize that my step kids just aren’t that in to art.  They were excited to do it but spent all of maybe 10 minutes on the project with no real plan or purpose to their craft.

Awe well it was fun anyway.  

I did however spend so much time trying to keep the cat out of everything that I haven’t even painted mine yet.  Mine was the white one.

   

         

Finding inspiration

in all the wrong places?  It was recently inspired by this artwork that I saw hanging in the bathroom at a bar. Lol.  I think I can tweak it, making it my own and use it as wall art in my bedroom.



I am however trying to create it using things that I already have, like paint, paper and cardstock.  So far this is all I have to show for my efforts. 



Where is the strangest place that you have seen something the you like, wanted to recreate or just admired?

I also like this one as well but as an artist I have a hard time buying art for my walls,  I SHOULD be able to create my own.



Easter eggs

The kids are always wanting to color Easter eggs but no one in our house eats hard boiled eggs and it is such a hassle. So this year we bought fake eggs tht I found at Walmart, which claimed to be like the real thing and used my acrylic paints to color them.

I think they turned out pretty good, I am sure they will end up broken or in the trash at some point but at least we avoided the mess.

2013 Christmas cards

Every year I hand mark my Christmas cards, some years I spend more time on it than others to be honest.  This year I wanted to include a family photo.  We had gotten married the years before and I just thought it would be nice for people to see us as a family.  We didn’t have anyone to take it so I got my tri-pod out and had my dad ‘supervise’ the shot.  We must have taken 30 shots just to get this one.

The cards themselves were a little more complicated than probably needed to be.  I used black card stock, accept for the ‘snow’, and acrylic paints.  There were four main pieces on the front that had to be cut out and glued together.  All in all they took about a week to create start to finish and I made them in stages to allow for paint/glue to dry.

In the end everyone seemed to love them, they turned out great I am so happy with them but as I say every year I need to start the process sooner and plan to make more that I usually do.  I tend to forget people and have to rush at the end.

Gundam Models

For those of you that don’t know, Gundam’s are giant robot “mobile suits” form the anime series by that same name.  They sell these model kits on the internet and for whatever reason my brother decided that the little monsters needed them for Christmas this year.  All joking aside they really like them, it was the putting them together that was… interesting.

Of course they couldn’t wait to open the boxes to reveal all the tiny pieces which were luckily held together and still wrapped, but to make things interesting and keep me on my toes I guess they somehow managed to switch the pieces around despite my efforts to keep it all straight.  So when I was trying to help put them together we had the pieces for the wrong model.

We tossed a coin to see who I was going to help build their Gundam first and the oldest monster won.  I tried making him put it together but he was so excited that his little fingers were shaking.  I ended up doing most of the work, not that I minded, it was actually fun accept for the kid that kept taking the pieces to play with them.  When we got it all done the oldest monster ran off with his.

I did the youngest monster’s while he was taking a nap so when he woke up it was magically together.  I would do more of them but just not with the little monsters around.  They just aren’t old enough or lack the patience to really help.

Doll House

When I was a little girl, my grandmother built a doll house for my sister and me.  I probably enjoyed it more than she did because I was young and played with it longer but over the years it got pretty beat up.  Eventually it ended up being shoved in the back of the attic at our parents’ house only to be rediscovered years later when they decided to retire and move.

The house was a little bit of a mess, covered in dust and knocked off its foundation.  My sister had just given birth to a daughter but didn’t want the broken down house taking up space.  I was living alone and the only one of us capable of fixing it, so I took it and told my sister that I would fix it up and when my niece was old enough I would bring it back.   It would be nice to see the old house being used again.

I bought the stuff and spent the next 5 years fixing it up.  I would have had it done sooner but I was working 40 to 60 hours a week.  I painted it a dark pink and completely re-did the inside with fresh wall paper.  That Christmas I went to my sister’s house when my niece was not home and hid it in a spare bedroom with a sheet over it.

As excited as my niece was to see it come Christmas Eve, it was nothing compared to the look on my grandmother’s face.  I am not sure what she thought had happened to it after all these years but she seemed happy to see it and despite my changes, she knew that it was the same doll house.

I forgot to take some after photos.