Stairs That Make Me Smile

For eight years I have walked down to the basement......

on these unfinished stairs. Then one day, inspired by pictures on Pinterest, I decided to paint them. What I thought would be a simple project, took me a couple weeks. I had to strategically paint the different colors because I still needed to step on a step in order to paint, but.... 

Now, I can smile on my way to do the laundry :-)

Painting And Snow Fun

I've been busy with a painting project that includes all these colors.

I can't wait to share it with you.

We had our first real snow fall this winter season, and it was calling us to come outside and play.

My daughter decided that it was time for a treat after some snow fun.

 Nothing like some fresh snow to go with Jelly Belly Berry Blue Syrup!

Not my idea of a delicious treat, but I did have a taste.

Maggie had fun in the snow too!

Much Needed Facelift

This dry sink has been with me for many years, and it has served it's purpose inside the house. I thought I'd give it a facelift before it moved to it's new home......

On the back patio.

I like it! What do you think?

Painted Walls & Painted Paper

Last week my 12 year old decided it was time to paint her room.

She wanted something different, so we ended up painting one wall a darker shade of blue and adding the orange dots to go with the theme of her bedspread. We finally finished painting today. We still need to put the rest of her furniture back in, and accessorize. It turned out really cute!

The other painting I did was on paper. I just received my new stencils, and I was dying to try them out.

 ,

 The big thing now is to stencil with ink or color sprays (like Ranger Color Wash, Distress Ink reinkers or liquid watercolors) and, of course, I don't have any. The closest place to get any decent art supplies is 50 minutes from my house, and I didn't have time to drive that far, so I started thinking.........

hmmm....

What if I put a chunk of watercolor paint in a spray bottle? Will that work?

Well, it did work, but not very well. I think I added too much water, and the color intensity was kind of dull.

So........ while at the grocery store, I spotted the Easter displays, and thought....

Hmm....what if I use Easter egg dye and put that in a spray bottle? Can you see I was determined to use my new stencils with something other than acrylic paints?

 Ok! I was on to something....

Yay! I would be able to try out my new stencils!

I tried the dye on watercolor paper and heavy drawing paper. One thing led to another, and here is what I ended up with (worth sharing, I should say).

This is mostly the egg dye on drawing paper. I tried once with the watercolor. That is the blotchy, smeared one to the right side. Tip: the watercolor chunk of paint doesn't work too well.

 This is distress ink, stencil with egg dye, and Perfect Pearls. I really like how this one turned out.

This is the stencil with egg dye, stazon ink, and acrylic painted circles.

It's always a good day when experimenting with paints.