spring break 2013

Last week we went to VA to spend time with Brian’s family and so Brian could do some work up there. Our first morning we were greeted with not-so-springlike weather.

But it was pretty. 🙂

I spent all week “working” too. My MIL is a wizard when it comes to sewing and since I had some projects I wanted to do, I waited and took them all with me so I could ask the maestro when I needed help. We sat in her sewing room (yes! a whole room just for sewing with great big windows) and I made her watch Pretty Little Liars (thanks for getting me hooked Anna!) while we sewed our projects all week. 🙂

Project #1: Baby Onesies. So many of my friends are having babies! So I wanted to make a few onesies for presents. I got the idea from Allison who made some super cute onesies for her friends. The onesies I got were 0-3 months so they didn’t fit on my machine and I ended up hand-sewing the appliques on. I really like how they turned out. 🙂

I have a few more but they are specially for some friends and I don’t want to spoil the surprise.

Project #2: Burp Cloths. This is such a quick and easy way to jazz up plain old burp cloths. Another project Allison inspired me to make. 🙂

This is one of my favorite fabrics that I had, so I made a couple with it. I love the colors.

I’m so glad these few turned out well! I thought a black and white fabric with neon stitching would be fun and gender neutral. Gotta stay on trend!

Project #3: Tailoring my pants. I’ll save that for another post because this one is getting long. 😉 But I will say, it is kind of difficult to take a tasteful picture of your own bum.

in review

This last week was filled with friends, fun, and amazing weather!

On Friday we celebrated our friends’ baby’s first birthday. She is just the cutest thing EVER. Honestly, there’s no point in me having children if they’re not going to be this cute. This is one of my favorite pictures with her. She had a major freak out when we all (8 of us, 4 of whom were her family) softly sang happy birthday while looking at her. So she only let me cuddle her for a little bit like this. But it was presh.

I’m babysitting again for 2 weeks for the toddler. She’s hilarious as always. And her English is getting better.

When I went to get her out of bed the first morning, I noticed Henrietta (you may remember her as Yeyah) had spawned an offspring. Later that day we watched a few baby hippo videos on youtube. So naturally we watched a few baby sloth videos next. She laughed so hard at this one.

 

 

 

 

I also nearly-completed a few more paintings. All that’s left is adding some love.

The weather has been lovely. Hot and humid with rain and storms. My zucchini is threatening to take over the planter.

The return of warm weather also means walks to YoPop. Yum. I’m also really digging this nail polish. It makes me look “tan” and stays on for so long!

A few other highlights include running lots (almost 30 miles in the last 2 weeks… huge for me!) and using coconut oil for many things other than cooking. 🙂

 

paint your own print

I consider myself a crafty person and enjoy the occasional artsy job. Pinterest has driven me mad with desire to be creative but I rarely make the time to do anything. In fact, this little project has been in the works for several months now. I finally took the plunge yesterday and am so happy with it!

If you follow my pins or have perused my boards, I think you’ll agree that I love color and simplicity. So when my friend pinned a print by q.a. design, naturally I repinned it and began the process of trying to acquire one. But the only land mass that I wanted, she didn’t have. (Seriously. Mexico? British Columbia? Nicaragua? But no Canada?) So I decided to paint my own. …and it got me thinking that I may be able to paint my own versions of many of the prints on my pinboard here. (Obviously I will never try to reproduce the artwork of Katie Daisy. LOVE her. I actually teared up browsing her work.)

So here’s what I saw:

But I wanted Canada. So here’s what I gathered to make it:

• printout map of Canada
• painter’s tape
• paint (3 colors)
• brushes
• blank canvas

These are the colors I chose. Martha Stewart gets me every time. I love her color selections.

Step one: paint stripes in one color. (At this point, I still hadn’t decided what colors I wanted, but eventually nixed the yellow because our walls are a pale yellowish color). I debated how to tape off the stripes for a minute, but this was the easiest for me. Peel off the little pieces before you paint (obviously).

This was after 3 thinly painted coats.

While the paint was still slightly tacky but without the chance of smudging, I slowly peeled the tape off. And seriously debated with myself whether I should just leave it like that. But decided to keep going, I could buy another canvas later if I still love the idea.

I let the stripes get nice and dry while I printed out a map of Canada to the exact size that I wanted. My canvas is 16″x20″ and hangs vertically, so I knew I wanted a map that was 12″ wide. Regular printer paper is 11.5″ so I just printed what would fit on one sheet then added to it by hand… You’ll see what I mean in a second.

I outlined the areas that I wanted to paint with a Sharpie, adding scraps of paper to the edges where Ontario, the northern islands of Nunavut, and Newfoundland had been cut off and finished those free-hand.

Then I flipped it over and sketched with a pencil over the Sharpie lines. I centered it on the canvas by folding the map into quarters and matching the center of the paper with the center of the canvas and keeping it level according to the stripes. I taped it down and traced over the Sharpie lines with a pen, transferring a perfect outline of Canada onto my canvas. You could probably use newspaper or carbon paper (if you have any of those) and get a similar result.

Next came the fun part, painting Canada. So. Many. Islands. This was after one coat. I think I ended up with at least 4 altogether.

Doesn’t it kind of look like a rhinoceros head? At this point, I caked on the paint in the mainland portion, trying to get rid of the ridges caused by painting over the stripes (sanding didn’t work…). [Side bar: I’m trying not to be such a perfectionist so I gave myself 15 minutes to do what I could and decided I wouldn’t care after that.] You can still see the ridges, but you can’t see the teal color through the grey. Break for lunch and then comes the final touch.

A heart over Vancouver. Because we left parts of our hearts there. 🙂 I’m letting it cure and trying to decide where to hang it. I also picked up four 5″x5″ canvases (they’re all on sale at Michael’s) and am mentally sketching those out now. I’ll let you know what I do with those. Now I’m off to run before the clouds get much darker!