Snow Happens, eh!

Well, it was bound to happen, we got a bit of the white stuff this week! Snow happens, here in Canada, eh! Not much we can do about it, but it sure helped get me in the mood for painting Christmas, just the boost that I needed!

I have been seeing these cute wine glass candle holders all over the place on Pinterest and I have been itching to paint a few. I scored a pile of wine glasses when my parents were up  visiting a few weeks ago and we went thrifting.

I decided to go freehand with these ones, and I am very pleased with them. We'll see how they do at the craft shows.

How to Paint on a Jute Table Runner

I found this awfully cute jute table runner at Micheal's the other day at a 80% discount!!! I knew right away what I was going to do with it! I have been trying to decide for a while now how I could use my logo on my table at the craft shows. I had thought of having my logo embroidered on my black fitted tablecloth, but I paint and shouldn't it be painted??? Then I thought...what if I paint directly onto the fitted tablecloth, but then what if I ruin it or slop paint on it, they don't give away these tablecloths and you can't just buy them anywhere! So I had been thinking of painting on a piece of cloth and somehow attaching it to the black fitted tablecloth, but I hadn't found anything that appealed to me, until I found this table runner...problem solved!

So the first thing I did was print out my logo at the size that I wanted.

Then I tried to use graphite paper to trace the letters onto the jute, well that didn't work! So I placed the paper under the jute and pinned it securely in place.

It was still very difficult to see the letters, so I pulled out (and dusted off) my tracing light box, and voila that worked perfectly. I could very clearly see the letters through the jute.

I chose to use DecoArt's Chalky paint in Carbon, as I figured this paint sticks to most surfaces without needing any special prep. I painted the larger letters with a flat brush and everything else was done with my liner. It took 2-3 coats to cover well. You don't want the holes to be completely filled in with paint, but there needs to be enough paint to make it legible.

I am very pleased with how it turned out, I can't wait to use it at my next show!

Rolling Pin Make-Over

I have been busy painting for the upcoming Christmas craft shows. This is a little rolling pin that I made-over. I love the prim look of this one, the pattern is from Jill Ankrom out of her book called, "Of Times & Seasons".

We Lost Our Property Virginity!!!

Wow, it has been a crazy year! I had all of the best intentions to use this blog on a regular basis, but hey, life happens!

We made a HUGE decision last fall, we decided we were finally ready to buy our own house, so we began the house searching. We found "our house" during the Christmas holidays (great timing, yeah I know!) and made an offer. We took possession of the house mid-February with a moving date scheduled for the end of February (that should be plenty of time to pack, clean and paint...right???)

Then things got interesting! My son was playing in a broomball tournament the weekend before we got the keys, so packing and such got put on hold. My parents and mother-in-law came up, and my parents stayed with my daughter and my mother-in-law came to the tournament with us. This was great timing, as our real estate agent was able to set up a quick visit of the house so everyone got to see the house. The tournament went well and my son came home with a provincial championship under his belt.

The day that we were supposed to pick up the keys at the lawyers office, we got 50 cm of snow dumped on us!!! So the first day at the new house we had to dig our way to the front door after of course we had dug our way out of the rental house! My husband caught a horrible flu that everyone seemed to have caught at the broomball tournament, and his boss was away on holidays, so he was barely managing to work all day, never mind help me to pack and clean and paint! Thank goodness for my friend who came over and helped me clean all of the carpets and clean up the kitchen, I don't know how I would have gotten it all done with out her help. I managed to paint all of the rooms, except the storage rooms (I still don't know how I found the energy!) and pack as much as I could in the evenings.

My parents came up to help us finish packing and move. We rented a U-Haul and moved ourselves...note to self....NEVER AGAIN...hire someone!!!

It wasn't exactly all fun and games, but was it worth it...heck ya!!! We love our new home!

Our New Home!