Oh! It looks even cooler that way!

Yay! Fox hat!

When Mom bought the canvases for the paintings in WHO is in the painting, she had an extra canvas. She wanted to paint a picture for my room on that extra canvas However, since I was home for spring break, she figured it would be easier to just make me paint it instead of painting it herself. :)

She helped me with the background. We started by picking the colors - purple and pink and light blue (I'm such a girl. :) ). We poured the paint onto the canvas and spread it around just having fun.

Then came the boring part: letting it dry. Of course, we wanted to use the kitchen table for other things while it was drying. What's the best place for a painting to dry? On Christmas coffee mugs on the stove, naturally! Where else would it dry?

After the paint dried we covered it in glitter varnish. (Ooo shiny!)

The glitter varnish is kinda hard to see.

Then I started to design the line drawing for the center of the canvas.

My sketch on lovely scrap paper

After I had a design that I liked, I drew it onto the canvas with Sharpie. Don't you just LOVE Sharpies? :)

The Sharpie worked really well and was much easier than painting the dress form.

We liked the result, but it still needed something a bit more. So we decided to put paper flowers in the corners.

Just plain purple flowers were boring. What's our solution? Pink and lilac paint!

We made an assembly line; Mom painted the lilac and then passed it to me so that I could paint the pink. At first, she was way too slow so I had to take care of my impatience.

But then we got into a rhythm and it worked like clock work. .... If clock work painted flowers. (There were many choruses of "painting the roses red").

After the flowers were finished it was time to break out our trusty friend, the hot glue gun.

I glued the flowers to the canvas.

Danced a bit.

Then glued some more.

And viola! A finished dress form painting! :)

I added the head to the dress form. :)

So I had the painting laying on the table when my aunt came to visit the day that I left to go back to school. Unfortunately, it was upside down to her. So she says, "Oh, it's kinda cool." Mom and I look at her and say, "Um, it's upside down." She turns it right side up and exclaims, "Oh! It's even cooler that way!"

WHO is in the Painting

BORING blank wall

 There has been a blank wall staring at me in my living room for quite some time now. I have been trying to decide what to do with it. I didn't want to spend a lot of money on something only to decide later that it isn't exactly what I wanted.

The only thing that I knew for sure was I wanted TURQUOISE - my favorite color. We have the most awesome comfy cozy brown pillows, so I wanted to incorporate some brown onto the wall as well.

So, I decided to be adventurous and paint my own canvases. Now, you should be aware that when I say I paint it's because I enjoy painting, NOT because other people enjoy my paintings. In other words, everything I paint looks like modern art even if it wasn't intended to be modern art. So, this truly was an adventure!

I purchased 2 double pack 16" x 20" canvases from Michael's when they were on sale buy 1 get 1 free. I have my own store-sized inventory of paints and paintbrushes. So, my total investment was about $10.  I figured if I totally hated the results I could paint over them and haven't wasted too much ca$h. 

I'm not sure if this is really my style, but I'm enjoying them!

It makes me smile when I look at them for several reasons:

1. TURQUOISE! Enough said!

2. Sarah and I painted them together. Most of the paint actually made it onto the canvases.

3. My husband even got in on the action! He got to use his laser level to hang them.

4. I like fleur de lis!

And the biggest reason that they make me smile.... After hanging them on the wall and admiring our mad skills, we realized that each of the fleur de lis is actually shaped as

An ear of corn

an upside down penguin (OK, you may have to squint a little to see it)

and... Cindy Lou Who!! 

Let me assure you, this was completely unintentional!

I must admit, when my husband so lovingly (that is sarcasm for those of you who may not realize it) pointed out the ear of corn, I was a little annoyed. Then we took a closer look at all of them and realized this is really funny!!  Now I can't look at them without seeing the "hidden" pictures.