Long Time No See

Already it is almost September.  Don't ask me where this year has gone, because I have no idea.  The summer has flown by and now it's nearly over.  Life has been crazy, but God is good!  He's guiding us through all the turmoil and obstacles we keep running into.  

I'm way behind in posting projects, but here is one that I did earlier this year.  I painted this little box for a friend.  It was my first time playing with shading and highlighting with acrylic paint, and let me tell you, I had FUN!

I also painted this little birdhouse for my husband's grandmother.  I loved the colors of it. :)

For Christmas last year I bought Ben a Celtic drum.  He then asked me to paint a design on it.  This is what I have so far on it.  I still need to paint the sides of it, but it has been put on hold for now.

Since my painting projects have been put on hold for now, I've been working on a quilt I started at least a year ago and recently discovered in my fabric closet.  It's a rather tedious pattern, but I think it will be worth it when it is finished. :)

Catching up

So far, this year has been really fun and really crazy.  We spent February out west visiting family.  Then for the month of March we had my sister visiting.  It was all really fun and I'm so glad it all worked out.  While we were at my parents I did some painting on the walls of two of the rooms in their house.  That was really fun, but a little nerve racking.  I mean, to have my parents ASK me to paint on their walls was a totally new experience for me. lol  Below are some pictures of how the paintings turned out.

The dining room paintings:

The pantry/laundry room painting:

It was such a blessing to be able to make the trip out West and I'm very thankful it worked out.  Now we are back home and I have more projects underway.  It's good to be home. :)

The Holiday Projects

Happy New Year!


It's now 2011 and I have to remember to write the correct year on things.  Just got used to writing 2010 in time for it to change again. ;)  It does seem like last year flew passed me before I could even blink, but it was a good year. :)


This has been a very busy time for us, but things seem to be slowing down some now.  For that I am thankful. I like having things to do, but being swamped with time limits and lots of places to go does get to me after awhile.


The holidays have finally passed and I can now post pictures of all my most recent projects.  I've been really busy and I have a lot of pictures to post. :)  It's been hard to keep from posting some of these because I'm so happy with how they turned out, but I couldn't post them until they were given to the people they were made for.  hahaha So I was twitching a little. ;)

I started this painting for my sister in late July and didn't finish it until just before Thanksgiving.  It was a true stretch of my abilities.  I really didn't know what I was doing, but I'm happy with the way it turned out and so is she.  That's what mattered the most, that she liked it.

Ben made this for my dad.  I'm so proud of him and his leather working.  He loves making this kind of stuff.

The following paintings I did for my mom.  I wanted them to look like appliqued quilt blocks.  I had a lot of fun with these playing with the different background techniques.  The brown was the most fun as I used seran wrap to give it the textured look.

 

This first teddy bear I made for our 3 year old nephew.  I again had a lot of fun with the background.  I had a lot of help with the face and the hat.  The teddy bears are so fun!

I painted this for our newborn nephew.  He was only a month old for his first Christmas, but I know he'll understand better when he gets older. ;)  Plus I wanted to make another teddy bear so he gave me a reason to make one. ;)

This one was for our almost 5 year old niece.  I had a blast making it all girly and sparkly. :D  

For my Great-Grandma I painted this tray.  It was fun to do and the colors all came together better than I thought I'd be able to do.  The stain I'd used at first stained it Cheeto orange and I was NOT happy about it.  But after some scrambling I found another, darker stain that turned it into a nice color.

This tray also started out orange.  So you can imagine my panic as I had all of these wood projects stained a freaky orange color.  Now I like orange, but wood stained that color looks like it came from a contaminated forest, just sayin'.  So anyway, I painted this one for my Grandma.  It was fun because I love the orange flowers.  And the color the other flowers turned out is really pretty.  I was surprised by it. lol

This is another Ben project.  He made it for my Grandpa.  I think he did a great job with it.  I love how dark the leather is. :)

So that is a glimpse of what has been keeping us occupied.  I have some new projects I'm working on now and I'm hoping to learn some new stuff with them.  


I've also recently been introduced to the world of colored pencils and I've come to realize that I love to color stuff. ;)  So I have my Cinderella and Tangled coloring books that I love to sit and play with.  My sister-in-law is teaching me how to shade things (amongst all the other things she has taught me with my art stuff) and it is so fun!  Thanks to her I have found a side of me I didn't even know existed! lol