A Favorite Thing

This week my favorite thing includes all of the treasures I have received in the mail from my first year of blogging. This collage is not only about presents, but also about friendship, creativity, and my love of blogging. 

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A Favorite Thing

First Try at Chalk Painting

I had been dying to try my hand at chalk painting. I had done some research and purchased my supplies. Then one day Ashleigh said she wanted to use this old piece for her art display in an upcoming show. I told her about the chalk paint and she wanted to try it out. I was so glad because sometimes it's just difficult for me to get started when trying something new. This piece has two little drawers at the bottom but she doesn't want to use them at this time.

We used two teaspoons of the nonsanded grout with 1 cup of latex paint (Linen White by Benjamin Moore) and added a little water. (I recently learned to add a little water to the grout first to prevent lumps and then add the whole mixture to the paint. We really didn't have problems with lumping though.) Ash wanted to add two coats of paint and then I added a coat of Johnson's Paste Wax after it dried thoroughly. 

It was a rainy evening and I enjoyed sitting and watching Ashleigh paint with the garage door open while sharing what I had read on blogs with her. While sitting there I breathed in the fresh air and took a moment to reflect on the gratitude I have to be living in such a beautiful place with neighbors who take wonderful care of their homes and yards.

So this is the finished piece. We used #60 sandpaper and I wasn't sure if it is the correct grit. I will do more research on that.

I wanted to see how the color compared to what we have in the great room. I knew there were alot of different whites and as you can see this one is whiter than our built in cabinets and fireplace mantle. I wonder if a dark finishing wax would make it look more like our built ins. I think I will go get some Annie Sloan dark wax and one of her brushes for my next project. I have several pieces I want to paint.

I welcome any comments from those of you who have experience with this. Between painting, playing with my new silhouette CAMEO electronic cutting machine and visiting my precious grandson in Chicago, I have my summer vacation (coming up in two weeks - YES!) pretty much planned out. Oh, I will will have fit in some deep cleaning of the house too!

Matchbook Notes

I was inspired by a simple project I saw on The Silhouette Blog: Matchbook Notes. 

I am amazed with the machine. It even cut the little pieces of white paper to staple inside.

The designer's blog is here.

Silhouette Cameo Debut

I have a new toy, a Silhouette Cameo electronic cutting machine. I received it for Mother's Day but it sat in the foyer for a few days before I opened it. Dan said, "Why haven't you opened it?" I said, "Because I feel overwhelmed with learning a new thing." I'm not one who likes to read directions.

So I finally opened the box, read the directions and watched the video. The machine came with 51 free shapes but I didn't know how to get the shapes. I called the contact number on the Silhouette America website and customer service helped me get my free shapes.

So I started with making some large pinwheels. It took some practice peeling the cut pieces from the sticky paper. I ruined several shapes and got very frustrated at first. Then I remembered how every new skill takes practice so I decided to add some patience. Eventually I did get the hang of it after starting with these pinwheels.

I used large brads from my card making supplies to hold them together. I go to my card making stash for so many of my projects! 

They will probably never be held by sticks but I enjoy looking at them anyway. Maybe I'll put them in a basket or something.

The pinwheels and these other shapes came with the machine, all except for the mustaches. A $10 gift card came with the machine so I could choose some shapes I liked. I have wanted mustaches and a few others I will show you below.

I cut out the free shapes to help me get acquainted with the machine. I learned how to remove them intact them from the sticky paper after they were cut. I applied some of the fragile shapes on paper, such as the green swirly one below. 

Tags, yay!!! 

The paisley shape is really cool. It comes in two pieces so you can put another colored paper underneath to jazz it up more. 

It amazed me how the machine cut these fancy pieces and I learned to get them off the sticky paper intact.

These "thank you" tags are really cute!

This "love you" word bubble came out great as well the buttons and well, everything here...

I purchased the patterns below to hold gift cards for a birthday party for a friend's son and daughter. I have admired the packs of cardstock cake slices I have seen at Michaels in the bridal department. It's so nice now to be able to choose my colors (like the blue one below). I can imagine several of them put together to make a whole cake. I have also wanted a pillow box pattern. Each of these patterns were 99 cents and I can make them any size I want.

Since a theme of the party is mustaches, I added one to the owl! I shared in a recent post how I have come to like owls. I hope my little friend likes them too!

So now I feel acquainted with my new Silhouette Cameo and cannot wait to make more stuff! I think there are many new things to make that I can discover. I will learn through the Silhouette blog and my lovely blog friends.

Natural Born Artists

RAW Natural Born Artists presented Expressions on May 16th at Bartini's in downtown Indianapolis. Ashleigh made her debut there. Here she was finishing a charcoal drawing the evening before the show.

She spent the night with me while Dan was out of town on a business trip and I helped her get ready for the show. We took a break and went out to dinner. I love the creativity that flows when Ashleigh is home with me.

I had such an enjoyable time being there for Ashleigh. She was nervous all week long as she prepared for this big event. I was very impressed with her talent and organizational skills.

She had talked about the space she had at Bartini's and how she would have to hang her drawings on a brick wall. She researched how to do this. She found that she needed to first clean the brick with rubbing alcohol, then apply a plastic hook with extra strong tape and then tape like mad over the hook with Gorilla tape. I was her assistant in the process, tearing the tape for her. She had a drawing of exactly how to hang the pictures that included measurements. She had three hours to set up her space.

On the right is one of her drawings and to the left is another artist's acrylic paintings on canvas.

After all of her careful measurements, these six pictures did not hang in perfect symmetry as she had planned.  When I saw the horror on her face I suggested tilting them as if she had planned it that way.

Also, the black Gorilla tape showed above the pictures. Again, she was concerned and I told her that it fit in just fine with the ruggedness of the brick and all the black around the place.We loved the end result. She was so worried about the pictures falling down. Other artists who had used this space encountered that nightmare.

I especially love this one!

Here was her space, all set up and ready to go!

Her friends came to support her. Notice the guy in the red shirt under the three drawings? Yes, she sketched her boyfriend, Kyle.

Dan and Ashleigh

I had to laugh at what Ashleigh wrote on her Facebook page:  "What an amazing day... Finishing work, framing it, somehow fitting everything in my car, driving downtown with a ladder and easel nearly decapitating my mom in the front seat, laughing about the ridiculousness of everything, setting up in 2.5 hours, gorilla tape, freaking out that everything will fall down, photo shoot, video interview, a walking taco, having a few drinks, mingling with my awesome friends and family, meeting new people, hearing great compliments, tearing down in a half hour, everyone carrying everything to my car in one trip. I don't think I actually sat down once in 12 hours!! Loved the feeling, felt like myself, I hope these things continue!!!"

Wine & Canvas Class

Our neighborhood association hosted a Wine & Canvas class for ladies night. It was great fun. Wine & Canvas is something that started in Indianapolis and is growing rapidly in other locations. I had heard about it for a long time so was eager to attend the class. This is my masterpiece.

It was really dark in there and not very good for picture taking.

The artist gave very simple step-by-step instructions.

I used PicMonkey to posterize the picture below.

This one wins the prize for being most unique. My neighbor said she is not an artist at all but likes bright colors and works with stained glass. Maybe she should look into painting also.

It was a three hour class and I would highly recommend it. More information about Wine & Canvas can be found here. Oh, and there was good food and drink there too!

the artist's painting is on the left

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A Favorite Thing

Pink Saturday

Weekend Wonders

My Happy List

Mother's Day was fantastic. Danny and Natasha texted pictures of our new little one all day long and we FaceTimed too! I was showered with gifts: a silhouette CAMEO, Michaels gift card and lovely cards. I can't wait to get crafting!

New Mom Hospital Gift Bag

I loved this idea I saw on Pinterest of giving a Comfort Hospital Gift Bag to a new mother. So I sewed a little bag for Natasha and filled it up. It was so much fun sewing the bag and shopping for these special items to help her through the first few days of being a mommy.

Mother's Day Gift: A Family of Singers

We are a family of singers. When my mother, Mary Ann, was 16 years old she sang a couple songs at a radio show. She had been taking voice lessons and her teacher wanted her to get some experience singing in front of an audience. When I was in high school, I sang in The Best of Oak Hills variety show each year and through that was offered jobs singing at weddings. Following in our footsteps, our daughter Ashleigh sang all through high school and with the technology today was able to make a CD of the music she wrote.

Mom sang Near You and I Only Have Eyes for You. Before she sang, she was interviewed a little bit. She talked about how she was going to comptometer school and how her brother, who played the clarinet, had musical talent too. (A comptometer, by the way, was the first commercially successful key-driven mechanical calculator and Mom says it was very BORING work.)

I love this photo of my Mom.

My Happy List

I jeweled up my dressmaker form in the bathroom.