Plate Painting

My friends, Season and Shelly, and I (AKA the "Real Housewives of Chelsea, Alabama") recently went to Do It Yourself Crafts to paint some plates. Yep... PLATES! I saw this adorable, little bluebird plate design on the DIYC Facebook page, and it was just too cute to pass up, especially since we got an amazing deal from Living Social! ;) So, we headed over one night... and had a blast!
What amazing ideas they have in there! Here is an absolutely adorable idea for Christmas ornaments with kids' hand prints. I SO plan on creating this with Jaiden's and Iain's prints for Christmas 2011! PRECIOUS!


Annnnnnd, here is just the cutest little crab I have ever seen! How clever! (And I don't even like the beach!)


Now, keep in mind that we started out with an all- white plate. Then we painted both sides black and started working on some really neat techniques. One thing that impressed me was that we cut out the little birdie shape from regular, old paper and outlined the shape on the plate. After painting in the bird, we put paint on the paper itself and then put THAT on top of the bird we just painted. It created a really cool texture!
Here is my finished product.


The plate is displayed on the top shelf of the hutch in my dining room. And I LOVE how it goes along with my favorite Willow Tree angel!

I Got Into the Paint... Again!

I don't know WHY I have been adding extra projects to my never-ending list, of late, but I just got a wild hair, I suppose, and recently decided to paint Jaiden's room. (I just painted our tiny bathroom a few weeks ago!)

Well, I didn't paint her ENTIRE room. I just did a little "decorative" painting! I had spotted this really cute stripe technique in an Uppercase Living idea a while ago:


So I decided to try it out in J's room -- in her favorite colors: BLUE! Now, the painting itself was SO very easy. But the prep work -- and the taping -- was very tedious. BLECH! Why do I get myself into these projects!?!?

Anyway, I think it turned out cute. More importantly, Jaiden LOVES it!

I Had Some Extra Paint...

We have an eensy weensy little hall bath. I mean, it's small. And while it definitely serves its purpose, I can't say I've ever been proud to show people to this WC! :) So I decided to paint it. Well, let me clarify: I decided to do a decorative paint technique in there. I figured, it's small. It won't be that big of a deal! It won't take long!

Well, it didn't take too long (about 3 1/2 hours last Saturday morning). But it was a bit more "involved" than I'd planned.

I taped it all off first, of course. Then I searched the internet for a technique that would work for this little space and for what supplies I had on hand. I did not want to repaint the whole bathroom. I simply wanted to use the extra paint we had already to spruce things up in there!

So I went for the "ragging" technique. I already had the "base coat." All I had to do was scrunch up a rag, dip it in the paint and tap it on the wall, using different angles and such. Of course, my arm almost fell off, especially when I painted the ceiling using the same technique! AGH!

BUT...I think it turned out great!

And although you can't really appreciate it in these photos, here is a BEFORE...


and an AFTER...


and another shot of the sink area!

Our Ceramic Creations Day o' Fun!

So... Corinne and I got to chatting one day and decided that we needed something new and fun to do. She suggested painting pottery, something I'd tried to get Sean involved with on a few unsuccessful occasions!

At any rate, we planned it out, and it turned into a FUN family affair! Sean's Mom, Toni, Corinne, my Mom, Sean and I had a super-filling lunch at Panera... and then we headed across the way to Ceramic Creations. We roamed around, wide-eyed and confused, looking at unpainted, white pottery blobs... careful to NOT touch the beautiful finished versions that were "for display only."

After about 15 minutes (or possibly more... we were really overwhelmed by all the white pottery blobs!), we finally settled on our creations of choice... (see below) and got to painting!

I spent nearly all of the time painting, repainting and painting more of my base coat. (The dern paint didn't want to stick!) We also flipped through books and examples for some inspiration. (Too bad our painting didn't look like the examples... hmmm...)

When we finally handed them in --to be coated and fired -- none of us seemed too enthused about our hard work. But when we got the pieces back the next week, we were THRILLED! How great they all turned out... and how much fun it was! I think we're addicted now. I'm already thinking about my next white pottery blob....

my Mom: candlestick

me: candlestick

Sean: spoon rest (which he painted for me! He is not a huge fan of ladybugs and flowers! Ha-ha!)

Corinne: bowl (w/ chopsticks/holder)

Sean's Mom: bowl
Toni: mug