DesignDreams by Anne: January 2013

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Spring Showers

Another day, another painting! A snowstorm kept me from leaving the house today - soooo frustrating when I am chomping at the bit to start a project!! Oh well, I paced the house for an hour and then sat down at my easel to play with my paints. This is what I came up with.

I messed around and started trying to paint snowdrops but failed miserably. I turned them into tulips instead and I'm quite pleased with the result.

Spring Showers, Acrylic on 8x12 Acrylic Paper

And after a little added shading and definition, I framed the painting. I am still amazed by the transformation created by a simple frame.

Have a happy and creative week!

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Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Lucy's Playground

I have so much nervous energy today that I let it out in the form of another painting. Hope you enjoy it!

Lucy's Playground
20x20 Acrylic on Wrapped Canvas

Linking to:
Paint Party Friday

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Saturday, January 19, 2013

Cheerful Landscape

It's been a while since I was inspired to paint pictures, but I saw a painting the other day and loved it so much that it spurred me on! It must be spring fever setting in.

Shades of Yellow
11x14 Acrylic on Wrapped Canvas

Have a fabulous day!

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Linking to: Sunlit Sunday Overflowing with Creativity Paint Party Friday

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Sofa Table Makeover

I have a cute table I bought for $20 at a church sale. I painted it yellow and changed the handles and loved it for four years. Then I moved to my current house and the colour no longer worked. I painted it white.

Here it is in Benjamin Moore Simply White

Then I painted it ivory.

and then I used Miss Mustard Seed milk paint in Flow Blue. It was fabulous, the paint crackled and it looked ancient and wonderful. I moved the table back into my bedroom and... the colour was all wrong.

Crap.

I didn't want to lose the fabulous paint effects, but I had to change it.

Sigh, exactly the look I wanted but it does not work with the decor of the room. Back to square one. I used a wide brush and painted a light coat of a semi-gloss white in a very slip shod manner. I used a damp paper towel to wipe off some of the white paint and once dry, I lightly sanded it as well.

Whew! It worked!! Love it and it looks great in the space, too.

Have a happy week!

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Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Making Easy Peasy Hearts

I fell in love with some wire hearts I found on Pinterest and HAD to have some of my own. Isn't Pinterest wonderful for inspiring projects??

I found some old picture wire in a drawer and was able to shape it easily into a heart. To hang it, I added some chiffon ribbon in a super pretty aqua colour. I wrapped a beaded necklace all around the wire and left the ends hanging down to pretty it up a bit. Oh how I love how this turned out!!

I bent a wire coat hanger into a heart shape and wrapped twine all around the wire. I also found a piece of dark green floral wire, yep, another heart!

Then I found this strange wire thing on my workbench - can't remember for the life of me what it was from. It has 5 coils of wire attached together??? Whatever. It was easy to shape it and then I offset the different coils to achieve a 3-d effect. Cute!

I made one more picture wire heart to hang from a plant pot. I had lost the mate to a pair of heart shaped earrings. I think it looks sweet attached to the center of the heart.

I took a tin foil pie plate and cut it into a heart shape. I wanted an embossed look, so I tried to make shapes on it using a pen to scribe scrolls but that didn't work at all! I painted it instead but that didn't look right either. So I sanded some of the paint off which created a distressed look that I DID like and then I found a length of chain link to hang it up with. I bent back all the edges to make it look chunkier, but it just didn't look right. In the end I propped it up by some galvanized containers and it looked much nicer. In hindsight, I should used glue to make the scrolls and then painted it. Oh well, another time...