Slime

Parker has been bugging me to make slime for a while now. I finally relented. It’s pretty simple….glue, water, borax and food coloring and it provides minutes of entertainment. Yes, I said minutes. My kids are pretty much always more interested in the process than the result. Oh well. Now he can quit hounding me until the next project he sees on YouTube.

Pom Pom Seniors

Is it pom pom or pom pon? Regardless, I was hired to paint frames for the seniors on the squad. Each girl was asked their favorite colors. Clearly, bright colors are popular! I felt a whole lot of pressure on these because I know how picky teenage girls can be! Hopefully they will like them because I enjoyed painting them. (And hopefully none of them read my blog because they haven’t received them yet.)

When I don’t leave the house…..

I’m able to get a lot of painting done!

Any time I put pictures out here of my paintings, I feel the need to say that I am completely inspired by Kim Wheeler at Small Words Art. The “Max” painting is my version of this one. The other two are versions of other ones that she has done. If you want to order a beautiful painting….she is definitely the girl to contact! I’m just a local yokel painting stuff for my friends.

My Pom Pom Necklace

I saw this necklace and this tutorial from Lil Miss Momma and I figured I would give it a whirl. Partly because it was Sunday afternoon and I didn’t feel like leaving the house to buy fabric, and partly because I’m super thrifty, I decided to cut up an old T-shirt that once belonged to the boys to use for this project. I loved this shirt. I got it at a garage sale for $.25. Parker wore it a ton and then so did Jack. It looked adorable with green camo shorts. It was in the garage sale pile, but this is a much better use for it. (And I think I’m even going to use the skull/crossbones for something else!)

See above…that’s where son #2 has bitten the shirt. This happens to A LOT of his shirts. Luckily, he is the last child, so no one has to get his vampire attacked hand-me-downs.

This is a bag full of cheesy, tacky costume jewelry. Every so often, I think I should sell it on a garage sale. However, it keeps coming through for me with projects. Sure enough, I found a chain in here for this necklace.

Originality

I wanted to make sure I said that my little custom name art adventure is just a little local thing I'm doing for friends (and friends of friends) and family. By no means am I a "professional" or competing with those artists out there who are much, much more talented than I. I draw tons of inspiration from blogs and etsy. I do not claim to come up with this stuff on my own at all. I usually get ideas from other places and tweak them for myself. A time or two (or 10) I've probably completely copied off someone else. However, I am ALWAYS quick to give credit where credit is due! However, if you want to copy off me, go right ahead. I'm happy to inspire--just be warned that my ideas aren't always original. ;-)

Custom Name Art

I am "officially" painting custom name art now. I got business cards and everything--that's how you know it's the real deal! I have several orders yet to do, but these are the first three I've done. I'm trying to put a lot of detail into each one. These are all gifts, so I sure hope the recipients don't read my blog!

This one is for a dance studio.

The next two are for teachers.

Teacher Appreciation Week Finale!

For our big Teacher Appreciation Week finale, my friend Angie and I painted 12x12 picture frames for 65 teachers and staff. One of the big things that makes a project like this doable is that we have plenty of room to spread out and we don't have to clean up each day!

A pile of frames just waiting for some love.


As always, some colors are so much easier than others. The worst....orange. Followed closely by yellow and red! Easiest...any blue.

Base coats almost done. Not looking all that cute at this point!

Now they have some dotty love!

C'mon!? How cute are these polka dotties!? We use a round sponge to make the circles.

Now they are getting their identities. We try to use colors that we think fit the person they are being given to.

Once the painting was complete, they got a coat of glossy Mod Podge. It is AMAZING how much better they look with that shiny coat on top!

This ended up being one of our favorites.

And now they have all been accessorized.

This project was sooooo much fun to do. It took us about 3 weeks of work but we enjoyed every minute of it! And I think it is very safe to say that the teachers loved them too which makes it all worth it!

Primitive Christmas

Parker's teacher like primitive country, so I made a special one-of-a-kind Advent calendar for her. I love how it turned out. (Sorry the pics are sideways.) I ended up selling about 15 calendars this year which gave me a nice little bit of spending $. If I do it for next year, I MUST plan ahead so I don't get swamped in November!

So.....whew....Christmas is over. This year, I didn't scramble around much at the last minute which, oddly enough, made it feel LESS Chistmasy to me. I guess the stress of the last minute details has become my normal!