Apple Blossoms & Golden Finch

Tags

art, bedroom, birds, canvas, craft, destress, fine art, flower, flowering tree, golden finch, guest room, hobby, home decor, home making, paint, painting, postaday2011, relax, relaxation, stencil, tree

Rainy Saturday
I’ve been extremely stressed recently, on top of work, two weeks before the end of my course, my professor decided to extend the class! Can she really do that? We’ve stalled on our home projects. There are still walls to be painted and boxes to be unpacked… I often forget how much painting relaxes me. Painting canvases, not walls…  played around with the idea of flowering branches and birds. I played around with a silhouette idea, but didn’t like it for my walls. The inspiration has to hit at just the right time.

Blossom Detail

Today, while checking out a local community yard sale (during the pouring rain), I saw a cute stencil. Now, I’d never stencil flowers and birds on my walls (and I was quite harsh about the ones on the walls when we bought our first house), but I saw a cute stencil and thought that it would be great as a painting. For 25¢, you can’t go wrong.

Quickly after we got home I was playing around with the stencil. I was going to use it on my canvas, but it had three layers of stenciling craziness and the result would become a mess. So I looked at the image on the packet and used the images to guide my painting.

I rummaged through an unpacked box to find my paint brushes and acrylic paints. I kept my blank canvases handy, knowing that I’ve been itching to paint. I still need to spray it with a clear coat before Hubster hangs it on the wall. This is what I created…

Apples Blossoms & Golden Finch

This painting is perfect for my guest room, It’ll tone down the green walls and matched the bird-cage theme.

What did you do yesterday???

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Monogrammed Wooden Hangers

Tags

closet, coat, craft, Creating, decorating, DIY, hand-painted, hangers, home decor, Home Maintenance, monogram, postaday2011, stencil, wood

I had one pack of wooden hangers from IKEA, some from BB&B and a few random ones from before and I wanted a more uniformed look. I know what you’re thinking, they’re just hangers… it’s overkill, but I really love the new monogrammed hangers for our coat closet.

First, I used a thin sharpie to trace a “D” onto the midsection of the hangers. Then, I hand-painted my new monogram with a dark brown (raw umber) acrylic paint. It took 3 thin coats to achieve a rich solid color. After all

Monogrammed Wooden Hangers

owing them to dry, I used one coat of a clear sealant spray meant for acrylic paint.

I love entertaining. I’m not really a fan of sorting through coats at the end of a “throw it on the bed” parties. In order to always have room for our guests’ coats, we keep our out-of-season coats in the back of Pumpkin’s massive closet (seriously, it’s big enough to be another room).

I think this would be an excellent gift for a housewarming, a college freshman moving into a dorm or newlywed couples (what bride doesn’t love showing off her new initial?).