Starting an new adventure. Hope you will join me on this exciting journey :)

I recently fell in love with a pin on pinterest: a watercolor painting tutorial that can be found here.

As an art teacher, I am always looking for good and simple art projects for my students.

OF COURSE I always use my kids as examples for my projects :) I hope that some day they appreciate having artwork of themselves.

So anyways just like in the tutorial I used picmonkey to alter the images into posterized images. Unfortunately, not all pictures work well for this since it has to have both light and dark value in the image.

I transferred the images and used watercolors to paint them on watercolor paper.

This is how they turned out. Me and Pierce.



Luke

David ( poor guy never gets any artwork of him but that is because he doesn't like to take pictures)

I knew I wanted to display them in an old window that I found at Round Top last spring. My husband is so glad this window is not sitting dejectedly in the garage anymore. I measured the window panes and decided to mat them with a 1.5 inch mat to fill the space. I used white mat board to keep the pictures looking clean.

I taped them to the back of the window panes to secure them flush with the window. After hanging it on the wall my project was complete. I am super excited about the outcome. Maybe I will change out the watercolors as they grow

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Happy Thanksgiving

On our way to Thanksgiving at my parents house, we stopped and took some impromptu family photos. Thanks Megan for dropping everything on a moments notice. Getting a family of four with two little kids to all look and smile on command is practically impossible but I think we got what we needed. I wont post the pictures because we are using them for Christmas cards but this picture of Pierce was worth the effort.

So THANKFUL for my sweet boys

pumpkin patch

A few more from the pumpkin patch

 

 

 

 

 

Popeye and Olive Oyl

I was going to wait till after Halloween to post these but I cant because they are just so CUTE :)

 

 

 

Mall Scavenger Hunt

Heres a mall scavenger hunt I designed for my friend's daughters 12th birthday

 

 

Pull up a chair...

 

Lately I have been on a quest for a new kitchen table and chairs. I wanted to get something old and revamp it. I saw this chair at our local thrift store for $10 and luckily it already came with a cushion. Score! 

Remaking it was was suprisingly easy. I cleaned the chair with water and paper towels. To make the paint stick to the glossy finish of the chair I used liquid sandpaper. After waiting about 30 minutes for the liquid sandpaper to set, I painted it aqua with a quart of house paint I got at Home Depot in the oops paint section. I saw the aqua color and knew I would need it for something one day. My next step was antiquing the chair with Howard's Premium Paste wax in Walnut that can be purchased at Ace Hardware. You just brush it on and wipe off the excess till you are satisfied with amount of antiquing. Finally I spayed it with Rust-oleum Crystal Clear Enamel to give it a glossy look.

To remake the cushion, I took the fabric off of the original cushion and re-used the foam insert. I aligned my chevron pattern and used a staple gun to secure it to the wooden base. I sprayed the cushion with Scotch Guard to *hopefully* prevent it from getting dirty from little fingers. This particular chair had screws that went up from the bottom of the chair, into the cushion base to keep it attached. I am thrilled with how it turned out and plan to make a matching chair to this one and another set of a completely different shape.

April Rush

Since I have been crazy busy with work, book club, the boys and Insanity, I haven't really had a chance to post. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the past month.

8 Months and not happy

Impromptu photo shoot at the park

The best of Easter Sunday

My always happy boy