Hand-painted paper mache house

At least I can say that I've had a very productive winter break...

Painted this the other night when I couldn't sleep.

And had to share these beauties that I bought with my gift card to Hobby Lobby :) thanks to my wonderful husband!!!

<3

My first ever milkpaint experience

I'm happy to be able to say that I am no longer a milk paint virgin!  I'm happy because it's now my new favorite medium.  Not for painting landscapes, but for painting furniture.

Milk paint has been used for centuries, and I love the finish and colonial look that it has.  It adheres very well to untreated wood [looks like a paint but acts like a stain] and gives a nice chippy look when painted over an existing finish.

I have been wanting to try it for months, but just couldn't bring myself to spend $22 for a quart of the powdered stuff, and I got a little discouraged from painting furniture after my jewelry box [fiasco].  I can say that now because I've realized that I could have done better.  I actually re-did it the other night with a crackle medium over the blue, which I topped with a whitish-gray, but I'm still not 100% satisfied.  I plan to try one last time with milk paint.

-- Anyway... I didn't want to spend $22 on the pre-made powdered milk paint, ao I tried making it myself.  After 2 failed attempts using milk curds, I ended up finding a recipe using powdered milk and bki g soda, so I tried it.  The 1st and 2nd attempts came out waaaay too watery, so I just kept adding more milk powder and baking soda until I got the thickness I was looking for.  Milk paint is supposed to be thin but should still give you decent coverage..

This was a mini untreated wooden sled that I got at goodwill.  I used 2 layers of milk paint on it and sanded it to a nice, vintage looking finish.  I love how it came out!

...But of course I needed to experiment on something with an existing finish...

So I painted my boring bread box... And I love the chippy look that the milk paint gave it :)

This could get dangerous...

Antique Hand-Painted Sled part II

Merry Christmas Eve!
It feels nice to be off from work and be able to kick back and relax... Although I haven't yet done much relaxing.
A few weeks ago I posted a vintage sled that I painted.  Well when I bought it, I actually bought two of them.  I had painted a vintage American flag on the other one, but did a sloppy job on it.

I have been talking for months about re-painting it, AND I ACTUALLY FINALLY DID IT.  Yesterday.

Paint, 2 coats of poly, and it's now back in its rightful place on our front porch :). Now I think I'll have to re-paint the other one...

"A Village Christmas" & "Early American Saltbox"

It has been awhile since I've done any paintings (I have to admit I was a little discouraged by the art show in October) but I have gotten back on the horse, and I have two new ones to share.

I didn't recruit help from my personal photographer on these, because I just took them quickly ;)

I might, however, recruit him to take nice photos of all my paintings (if he thinks he's up to the challenge.)

The first one might look familiar to you if you received our Christmas card this year...

and the second one was the result of being snowed in all day this past Saturday.

I have also been very busy with other projects, and I have to confess that I'm a bit behind on my posts... which is the reason why I'm sharing two paintings in this post instead of just one.  I have at least 5 more projects that I have completed and will be sharing, and beginning on Saturday I have 12 days off (my job shuts down for the holiday until January 2nd) and I plan on doing some more during that time.

★ Hand-Stitched Homespun Quilt ★

This is a project that I have been working on since the end of October, and I'm very excited that it is finally finished!  This was definitely the largest, most time consuming project that I have taken on so far.  I actually finished it on Saturday and have been debating whether or not I wanted to add more to it (more buttons, patches...) but decided that I like it just the way it is.

 The entire quilt was done by hand... no sewing machine involved

I love the burlap trim...

Some buttons thrown in for good measure...

And I have my very own photographer to take pictures of it!  My husband loves taking photos and just upgraded his camera and lenses, so I figured that I would put him to work!  He said that he would much rather have a job to do rather than just taking photos of random objects in our kitchen.  He might end up being sorry he agreed to this!!!

   

★ Simple Heart Wreath ★

I ended up getting a lot done over the weekend, and will be sharing the big project that has been consuming my time for the past couple of months later this week.  I'm still trying to decide if there is more that I want to add to it, or if I'm happy with it the way it is now.
In the meantime, here is a wreath that I put together on Saturday for our front door.  Big bulky Christmas wreaths don't work on our front door, as they often don't fit between the wooden door and the storm door, so we're limited as to what we can do there.  I wanted something that said "country" of course, and my original plan was to make one of these babies

but I waited too long to get the wreaths, and Michaels was cleaned out on Friday night, so I had to improvise.

I really liked the heart-shaped wreath, and it was only $8.00 for it.  I strung the bells (9 bells for $1.00 at Dollar Tree) on some jute and tied it to the metal wire on the wreath that holds it together.  If you're using jute, I recommend threading it through a wide needle first and pushing the needle through the holes in the bells, as the openings are small and the jute will fray and just give you a huge headache.  Then I tied an oversized fabric bow around the whole thing to hide the knots from the bells.  No glue is necessary if you tie everything tight enough.  I didn't use any glue so that I can change out the bow if I want to. I just tied a little jute onto the back of the wreath so that it hangs more easily.
It looks very cute on our front door, it was cheap, and it took less than 20 minutes to make!

★ My New Art Studio ★

TGIF!!!!

I'm so glad that this week is coming to an end... it has not been a great one.  However, I did accomplish something pretty substantial this week.  I converted the 2nd floor kitchen in our house to my new art studio.  It was a room that has pretty much been left untouched since we moved in because we certainly don't need two kitchens.  So instead of having my art & craft supplies in random places around the house, now everything is together!  It has certainly freed up a lot of room around the rest of the house too!  Now I finally have a place where I can work on things and not have to clean up every time I'm finished for the day (although I'm sure my neat-freak ways will take over and I will anyway).

Here was the room before:

And here it is now:

I'm not completely finished with it.  I would like to get the fridge and extra stove that still currently reside in there out, and the drain pipes in the sink leak and need to be fixed (a project that my dad and I will hopefully tackle soon).  I would also like to make some nice curtains for the windows.  I painted the one accent wall with leftover paint and made a little chalkboard out of some home-made chalkboard paint, (sorry I couldn't think of anything more creative to write on it... but I was rushing!).  Andy said that I should have just done the entire wall in chalkboard paint, but it would have been a huge pain to mix up that much chalkboard paint.

I think the room is cute and cozy, and I'm happy that it will finally get some use!!!

★ DIY Christmas Tree Star Topper ★

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!  It has been quite a week for me, but the end is near!  I just keep counting the days until my 12 day Christmas vacation.  Only 15 more days left!!!

I have been busy lately, and have several Christmas-themed DIY tutorials coming (as well as a finished painting that will be revealed in the coming weeks).  I have also been working on my biggest (at least in size) project to date, and am looking forward to revealing it very soon!

Andy and I did our traditional "day after Thanksgiving Christmas decorating" over the weekend.  When I pulled out our Christmas star I was disappointed to see that it was coming apart (although I did buy it at the dollar store about 3 years ago, so I can't really say that I'm too surprised).  But it did get my creativity gears turning!
This is a star that, like I said, I purchased at a dollar store at least 3 years ago.  It is made of soft plastic and is hollow on the inside.  It had glitter and foil on it that was peeling, so I just decided to help it along...

I thought it would be easier than it was (the glitter especially was a pain)... but with a little elbow grease I got all of the crud off.

And again comes my failure to take any "during" photos.  Basically I painted every other side of the star either red, green, or gold.  I took my trusty container of all-spice that I use to grunge up my crafts and sprinkled some of it over the wet paint.  When the paint was dry I sealed everything in with mod podge.
Then I took strips of red and green plaid fabric and mod podged them onto the remaining surfaces and allowed those to dry.  Once they were dry, I carefully cut off the excess fabric, and sealed those with mod podge.  Here is the finished product...

I also painted the "neck" with gold paint and added allspice.  Sorry I don't have a closer-up photo, but I didn't even remember to take one until it was up on top of the tree.  You get the idea :)