I love Shara Reiner’s whimsical take on folk art. I had the Scallop Box that I thought would work great as a recipe box as a gift for my niece’s bridal shower.
1 comments - Posted by Anita at 2:00 PM - Categories: Finished Projects | Painting | Staff Projects
A local craft store advertisement had these cute Candy Corns painted on cylindrical cones and I immediately thought of our set of 3, Puffed Trees and how they would be great as Candy Corns.
2 comments - Posted by Anita at 2:00 PM - Categories: Finished Projects | Inspiration | Painting | Staff Projects
I have 32 nieces and nephews and 11 grand-nieces and nephews. (I’ll pause here so your eyes can refocus.) My mom likes to create ornaments every year for her grandchildren (my nieces and nephew if you are family tree challenged). So every year, I am on the look-out for ideas to help my mom out, especially since I usually enlist myself to help her make these ornaments. (See other ornament options here.)
3 comments - Posted by Anita at 6:00 AM - Categories: Finished Projects | Inspiration | Painting | Staff Projects
My son is currently serving a mission for our church in Brazil, and in his weekly letters he always tells us about life there (he is in the southernmost state of Rio Grande del Sul near Porto Alegre, beautiful but life is definitely different than here in the US and in Canada). It has helped our family become even more grateful for the wonderful life we live here in the Portland Oregon metro area. I also LOVE sheep (as you can see in our Artist’s Clubhouse). I had the privilege of trying out Renee Mullins new book “Mini Seasons Volume 3” and chose this beautiful traditional scene that reminds me of all the sheep in Oregon’s Willamette Valley where I grew up.
At the time I began this project, we hadn’t yet received any of the Roc-Lon fabric that she made her projects with I am SO looking forward to experimenting with it, and we have the cutest little quilt hangers to display them on too! But I easily adapted it to a wood surface, just expanding the design out a bit and tweaking the top scallops to the sides. Renee’s patterns are so pretty, all of us at Artist’s Club were oo-ing and ahh-ing over every single one—I want to paint so many of these cute banners!
Renee’s directions were really easy to follow and I really liked how well the Americana paint covered so I didn’t have to recoat a bunch of times, yet if I made a boo boo I could cover it up easily. This cute little scene is perfect to celebrate patriotic America, back-to-school, spring lambing season...you might have guessed I chose this pattern because it would look great year-round in my home.
The stars I used along the sides are an Artist’s Club favorite, the Rusted Star 1 Inch that comes in a package of 6 and I just painted them, spattered them, then used a little Americana Wood Glue to apply them to the finished project.
Oh! Before I forget—if you’re messy like me, you’ll LOVE this product: Kiss-Off Stain Remover I didn’t know it existed until Mary Jo and Diane gave me some, it really works! I used it on Acrylic and Latex and it is fantastic!
Happy Painting!
<3 Lisa
2 comments - Posted by Lisa at 11:26 AM - Categories: Finished Projects | Inspiration | Painting | Staff Projects
This cute gift bag was created using our Canvas Lunch Sack and DecoArt's SoSoft Paints. I adapted a design found in Laurie Spelt's Simple Sampler book. This was my first real painting project on canvas. If you remember I did stencil kitchen towels in an earlier post, but this was really my first actual painting project on fabric. I did have a little trouble using graphite paper, so I ended up free-handing the cupcake outline using a regular pencil. You do have to load your brush a little heavier than other surfaces, and paint does go through the canvas a little so make sure you have a cardboard inside the sack. I found shading while the paint was still wet a great adaptation for the canvas. I used Laurie's Swirls and Stars Stencil for the darker blue background and some other stencils we had around that worked for the flower, leaves, and "celebrate!" which made the project super fast. Laurie's Alphay Stencil would be cute on the lettering as well. When stenciling don't forget to use Stencil Tape to block those things that you don't want or you may end up with a boo-boo. Since Laurie's original design was meant to go on wood, not all of her choices of DecoArt's Americana paints crosss over to SoSoft Paints, I had to do some blending of the browns to get the color I wanted. Here is the list of SoSoft Paints that I used: Mocha, Warm Neutral, Dark Chocolate, Ultra White, Buttermilk, Lamp Black, Baby Pink Deep, Fuchsia, Dark Burgundy, Light Hauser Green, Green, Santa Red, Ocean Blue, and True Blue.
And just in case your mouth was watering when you saw these delicious chocolate cupcakes that Lisa made for our chocolate celbration day (her birthday and my anniversary), you can make these delicious Dark Chocolate Rasberry Cupcakes too. Lisa does something a little special, she adds a layer of Ganache before the Vanilla Buttercream frosting.
0 comments - Posted by Anita at 8:00 AM - Categories: Finished Projects | Inspiration | Painting | Staff Projects
I went on a painting frenzy; once I started Icouldn't stop!
2 comments - Posted by Teri at 8:32 AM - Categories: Finished Projects | Inspiration | Painting | Staff Projects
Every year since my oldest son was in kindergarten, I gave his teacher a hand painted gift as a thank you for a great year. My oldest son is now in high school, so that tells you how long I have been doing this, and my youngest is finishing 4th grade. Last year I had a total of four teacher gifts to paint, this year, I only had one. I dug out a wooden bucket from my ever growing stash, and then I found an old pattern that I printed from somewhere probably years ago of apples surrounded by “ABC’s and 123’s. I needed to adapt the pattern a little bit, so I painted the apples on the front and finished the back of the bucket in black creating the look of a chalkboard. I was happy how quickly this painted up, due to the fact that I always seem to wait until the last minute to paint this project, even though I know a year in advance this day is coming. My son Cameron and I went shopping and he chose a fun selection of items to fill the bucket up that he thought his teacher would love…a bottle of Dr. Pepper, Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, chocolate covered caramels shaped like little turtles, a notepad with a butterfly magnet, and a fun package of pencils with a variety of bugs on them, finished off with a thank you note for a wonderful year. So, another year down and four more left to go for painting end of the year teacher gifts.
Now it is time to switch to holiday bazaar preparation mode mixed with a little bit of fun painting for me!
Happy Painting
1 comments - Posted by Diane at 9:30 AM - Categories: Finished Projects | Painting
