Love IS Everything...

What a day!  It was a perfect 65 degree day in the middle of January (MLK day) and I spent this day off from school with some young ladies who were ready to paint valentines.  This was a project that I wanted them to do their own thing (kind of) and gave them some options by sketching down a few ideas.  It's always fun to see what they choose!

Everyone knew what they wanted to do and that includes Miss Fifi, age 5.  She knew exactly what she wanted and set about doing it...bam...done in 5 minutes!

 Which left her time to visit with her pal Emily and her two sisters...and to entertain us all!

 Best buddies wanted to paint the exact same things...this is a common trend!

 These two even share the same paint palette!

 From kisses to flowers, everyone wanted pretty colors.

Don't ya just love it?

Flower power 1...

 and 2!

 Swirly Lilly Hearts...

The morning class on MLK Day...

 and the afternooners!

We had so much fun!

Colorful Valentines!

Just look at those glorious colors on the palette!  We're painting big 'ol fat Valentines for front doors and kitchen doors and throwing in a snowman for grins!

Because the heart itself is free form and abstract, we decided to paint the bases in a black and white theme...some with stripes, and one checkerboard.

Painting vibrant colors on a cold winter night is therapeutic!

Good job, girls!  And at center stage is the cutest snowman in town!  

It's Just That Kind of Day...

It's sleeting outside, my skin is so itchy even though I took an Aveeno bath and slathered with Eucerin, my husband feels like hunkering down with a book all day, the oldest is packing to go back to college tomorrow and the youngest is getting a horrible cold. Yup...we've got the winter blues!

Big time.   Sometimes, there's nothin' that a big 'ol pot of red beans and rice can't fix and it's been simmering all morning long.  The microwave is purring along cooking up a bowl of white rice and soon the French bread will be crispy with garlic butter.  The red tea kettle has been steaming up the kitchen with rosemary and lemon to add some humidity our static house.  Smells so nice! 

Craft Class With Queenie!

Mother Daughter Night!

My son's best friend and her Mom love to craft so I couldn't wait to play in the paint with them tonight!  We made a jewelry board to take back to college and a Valentine door hanger.

 

A very high tech treatment to dry paint quickly! 

Dabbing on a bit of gold paint for the stem.

And the finished products!  Love, love Valentine pot and all of the great colors!  And who doesn't love cream and black stripes??  Such a fun night!

Crafting With The Cousins!

We had a lovely Christmas and New Year's and hope you did, too.  We went to see cousins and others came to see us.  It was cold, rainy and miserable outside, so the guys made a huge fire in the fireplace and watched football games all day.  The chicks wanted to craft with Aunt Eileen and it was a great way to visit!

The girls chose to make jewelry board hangers.

 and we moms made new door hangers for them to take back to Houston.  You can also see the puzzle we all worked on while together in the background...classic cereal boxes!

Here's the gang...wish it was better quality!  Sure love these Teagles!

Adorable Snowchicks!

Although it was 23 degrees outside, these girls were hot at work on their super cute snowmen crafts!

Here's my sketch for the idea...one a stretched canvas for walls, the other a canvas door hanger.

We decided to use bright colors to liven things up!

Details, details!

Look how cute they all are...artists and art!

Christmas Nativity Reliefs

I came up with this idea as a gift for the school's teachers at the PTO luncheon.  It's a simple nativity scene on board with gilding.  

Very sweet and simple...can be hung or just to stand alone.

We used them to decorate the dining tables and the teachers took them with them when finished!

Finally Finished with My Own St. Nick!

I have a collection of Santas that I keep on display during the Christmas season at my front door and needed a Christmas themed piece of art to hang over it.  I thought about it for years and toyed with either painting a canvas or a banner.  I decided on a banner because it's easier to store, so I started painting this banner two years ago and got as far as the red checkered boarder with green trim.  Last year I painted a Santa on that I wasn't thrilled about, so again, it sat in my craft armoire for another 11 months. 

 

After teaching my Craft Night for Moms and painting traditional Santas, I decided that I wanted him on this banner, so I painted over the original one and finally finished! 

Yippee for me!!

Mamas' Night to Craft and Get Crazy!

This was so much fun...7 moms carefully crafted an heirloom traditional style Santa Banner for their families.  It's funny to hear them start out stating they are not artists and can't imagine that what they will create will be anything they will want to display in their house...

but give them instructions, guide them along (and help them remove their paint brush from their wine glass every now and again!) they have created a charming Christmas Decoration!  The brush in the wine glass thing happens every now and again...I am guilty of putting my in my cup of coffee!

I decided to paint the canvases black to give it an old world feel and the Santa design reflects St. Nicholas with a basket of simple gifts and a tree design I found a few years ago on the internet.  You can see him hanging in the mirror below!

Ta da!  My friend Jacqueline is a whiz at making bows and made these huge ones for all!

Here's a close up...

This was lots of fun and everyone was so impressed with how theirs turned out!  Great job, ladies!

The Grinch

I guess Mr. Mean Green is very popular this year...I have painted a couple of these this year!

Cookie Cutter Christmas Trees!

This was so much fun!  The kids picked their colors and traced their cutter shapes in the shape of a tree, then got busy with the painting.  

It's always fun to see what color schemes they come up with and after making a few suggestions to them, how they apply those techniques to their artwork. 

Some went for all kinds of color...

and some went for a specific palette. 

 This project took longer than we all thought, so a few of the girls took theirs home to finish and outline...

We all agree that outlining them makes a big difference!  Aren't they wonderful??!!