Christmas Art

I've been seeing really great Christmas art on pinterest but I just can't bring myself to spend money on anything. Buying Christmas gifts is a big enough stress on our finances without spending for the sake of decoration.

I still have a small collection of my old art pieces up in a closet so I took a decent sized one down and went to work.

I painted her bald at first and I always regretted not leaving her that way. I didn't even bother finishing it.

Step 1: Flip over canvas and give the back an even coat of black acrylic paint. (I used folded strips of printer paper to protect the wood) It didn't show through at all to the painting on the other side of mine. Let dry completely.

Step 2: Pick something you like and go to town with the white sharpie paint pen. (or paint and a skinny brush would work too)

  

Voilà

I propped it up for this picture but I used one of those sticky strips for hanging hooks to hang it. 

If you need me, I'll be in my bathrobe and jammies watching Clark Griswold make a mess of the holidays.

Copy Cat Art

I love pinterest. Craft ideas, recipes, fashion, gardening tips, interior design ideas and this..

lots of this...

My mom was was getting rid of this little yellow vase so I took it home. 

It's been in our laundry room pantry ever since. I wanted to add some inspirational pieces of art around the house but I've been struggling to find an alternative to big cursive wall decals. (Not hating, just wanted something more low key)

Glass paint would be best obviously but I buy craft supplies at random when I find good deals so I try to work with what I have. I didn't know which of these mediums would work best on glass so I did a test on the bottom.

The sharpie was hardest to get off (surprise!) so I got to use the easiest one! Yay!

How-to:

1. Choose a design
2. Draw away! (the glass rubbed clean with 409 for fixing mistakes)
3. 2 coats of clear spray gloss

I added little dots of the gold paint in those little circles on top and bottom before I sprayed :)

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Another thing I like to look at and pin is art. I love floral patterns and prints like these:

I had a blank canvas sitting around for months so I put some floral and printing together:

I'm sure I will do a few more projects like this soon. Christmas is coming up and I love giving handmade gifts :)

Happy Friday to all!

>>>>> follow me on pinterest <<<<<

Pretty Pots

I had several ideas for dressing up these pots but I couldn't decide which I wanted to do. So I thought, why not try them all?

I started with a few ugly pots that have all been used before but new plain terra cotta pots are usually pretty inexpensive.

I gave them all a good scrub in the sink with dish soap before getting started.

The first one I worked on was the little one in the middle. I'd seen this idea done before (link listed below) and I had a decorative oven mitt with great patterns to use for it.

<-- Scissors, fabric scraps, & mod podge

>> CLICK HERE <<

FOR THE ORIGINAL PATCHWORK POT TUTORIAL

I started by cutting the fabric off the mitt and then cutting the patterns apart.

APPLICATION

1. Cut each piece to desired size. I used strips for this pot but you can do random squares, circles, whatever you please!
2. Lightly brush small area on pot with mod podge and press fabric piece down
3. Brush mod podge on edges of each piece applied
4. Repeat until bottom portion is covered
5. Coat bottom pot with mod podge and let dry
6. Repeat process for lip
7. Let dry 24/48 hrs before use
8. Either use a pot liner or keep your new plant in it's original plastic container to prevent moldy fabric.

The second one I played with was the brown one. I like the whole ombre/two tone thing so that's basically what I was going for. I used the khaki paint I used for the tiny tables project and the same kind of paint(I ripped off the label) in blue.

I painted the top half of the pot with the khaki paint and let it dry overnight. Then I painted the saucer and bottom half of the pot blue. 

For the pot, I first tried this..

It worked at creating an even coat but the edge wasn't straight. I let it dry and tried to use painter's tape but because of the angles, it was too much trouble so I just eyeballed it with a sponge brush.

The last one I worked on was the gnarly pot on the left.

First, I tried this..

Looks nice, right? It turned into a thick drippy nightmare and I ended up using a sponge brush to paint the whole thing.

I wanted to add a little frill so I cut a piece off of a top that was about to go in the trash anyway. 

I used a hot glue gun to attach the fringe and called it a day!

This was fun ^_^