The "stained" glass window

I have always wanted a stained glass window, but they are pricey and where was I even going to put one?  Not, one was never on my radar for those reasons.  Fast forward to when we moved into this house.  We now live in the city limits, so houses are closer together.  We have this lovely jacuzzi tub, and it has this window over it.  We are very close to our neighbors, I mean they are great and all but do they really want to see us naked coming out of our tub? No! I didn't want to do curtains, why?  Because I wanted a beach theme, the curtains are expensive and don't really fit a beach.  So I looked at this as my chance to finally have that stained glass window that I had always wanted.  I got some supplies together and made some sketches.  First of all, I took painter's tape and taped off a 1-inch area around the edge of the window all around, this part would remain real glass so you could look out just a sliver.

I then took Aleene's acrylic spray and sprayed the window fora good adhesive surface.  It also made it look like the clear stained glass, kind of opaque cloudy.  This stuff is a great thing to have in your craft room so you may already have this or a similar product.  

 I decided to use puffy paint for my "lead" lines.  Why?  I thought if I ever did want to get rid of this I wanted to be able to scrape it off.  So I want it to stay up until I want it to come down.  I drew my sketch onto the window then I went over the lines again to make sure I had a good "lead" line.  I let that dry.  TIP*** you could tape a drawing to the outside of the window and trace those lines, but I wanted to freehand mine. I found lots of free and paid patterns on the internet if you choose to go that route, or you could even use a coloring page.  

Then it was time to make the color parts of the glass. I used regular acrylic paint (because I have tons of this) and mixed it with a little clear Elmer's glue and dabbed it on the window within the lines designated for that color.  TIP*** use a brush you don't love as you dab on the window you will ruin your brush.  

It looks like the rippled part of stained glass as you are filling in the lines.  I love the look!  It looks just as cute from the outside of the house too.  I did spray it again with the Aleene's after it was all dry. I just felt that would help make it more durable.  This is a very forgiving artwork to make.  I don't think you could really screw it up.  

TIP*** if you screw up on the design or painting, a razor blade will scratch off the incorrect part.  Just scrape it off and then let the areas around it dry.  Take the Aleene's and spray over the "messed" up area, it will be just like it was when you started after the Aleene's dries.  

We now have some privacy and a very unique piece of art.  

The entryway table

Since we moved into this house I have been on the lookout for "new to me" furniture that I could turn into a work of art.  My friend, Marcia, and her husband, Bobby had a truckload of furniture.  Some of this furniture needed help.  When Marcia saw this she knew this was something I was looking for and was she ever right!!  I knew instantly what I would do.  Another friend of mine has an Americana entryway table and I wanted to do my own little version because my living room is all about America and travels. The table was a drop leaf table, one side worked perfectly, but the other not at all, I think that is ok because I am using it as an entryway table and not a regular table.  I dreamed of painting the flag on one of the drop-downs and on the other side I planned to do another painting just in case I wanted to change the decor from Americana to something else.  The first thing I did was de-gloss the table and sand it a bit. 

Next was adding a layer of white paint.  My jar of white paint was rather old and while I was opening the jar it just shattered!  I spilled paint all over my carpet and spent about 2 hours cleaning up all that mess.  After that, I painted about 2 layers of white paint on the legs and then brown paint on the leaves and tabletop.  Once all that was dry I free handed a flag. I wanted it rough looking like it was 70 or 80 years old.  Once the flag was dry I dry brushed the whole thing in the same brown paint that I used for the top and I brushed the white legs in the brown too.  On the other side, I freehanded a tree branch and a bird.  Kind of like a cardinal in color, but a completely made-up bird.  Once the bird and the tree were dry I did the same dry brush with brown on top too.  

As I was setting up the table the cat brought me an orange fish which is featured in the photos :)  

Art Journal Prompts

Hello friends!

How many of you have an art journal?  I guess I have always done an art journal because I have always kept a sketch pad of random artwork, I just didn't realize it was called an ART JOURNAL.  I use it to keep artwork that goes with feelings, sometimes that is a rush drawing or quick sketch because I am just needing a creative outlet and sometimes it is a long process because I need a stress reliever.  

Last year I wanted to do an art journal that was more like a memoir, I am not going to show you too much of it, because I want my kids to be the first to read it (you know afterward).  The inspiration for this memoir book were two books called The War Bride's Scrapbook by Caroline Preston and Century Girl: 100 years in the life of Doris Eaton Travis by Lauren Redniss.  To say I love these books would be a gross understatement.  The illustrations are incredible and Lauren's book is EXACTLY what I have always dreamed of a book looking like, and how I make my scrapbooks.  Century Girl is non-fiction and  features a lot of photos from Doris's life and wraps them around illustrations. War Brides is a fiction book and features ephemera and lots of colorful artwork.  Both book are completely worth a gander (also check out all of Caroline's books).

My first illustrated book is my life from "birthish" to present day. 

Since I have gone about as far as I can go right now, I have started a second illustrated book.  This one has the theme of Michelle's Musings (that may be the title).  The "brand" is all about being random,  FBSP (fly by the seat of pants) and completely off the wall, this book will be full of that type of stuff. I have started with a "Strange Alphabet".  I call it that because each letter is an odd topic and not your typical "A stands for Apple" kind of book.  Sometimes the topic makes sense and other times you may think I am a lunatic (wait, you may already think that of me). I am more willing to share this one with the world in it's entirety where I am keeping the other one for my kids.  

If you art journal I would so love to see some of your work.  Remember there is no right way so if you don't journal, why don't you?  This is a non-judging, don't show anyone unless you want area where you can be free, creative and honest. If you are struggling with an issue, draw or paint it!  If you are excited about that promotion, draw it.  If you love that song and want to create about it, do it!!! You can use as little or a much supplies as you want.  You really only need to start with a pencil and a piece of paper...let your imagination take you from there. 

 

Paducah, if you wanna you can rhyme it with bazooka

There is a wall in the dining room that is huge, behind the cabinets and SCREAMS for a mural.  John told me one of our first nights here that he could see me doing artwork up there, so yeah, the challenge was made, I had to think of ideas.

I wanted something unique, something that people would say "WOW" and something no one expected.

I thought about old-timey signs, a whole bunch of them painted all over the wall to look like the wall was covered in signs.  Good idea, but not what I needed.  Then I thought about a diner scene, but I decided that needed to be in colors like pink, and neon and I wanted more earthy tones.  I decided that I love the Paducah song, I have always loved the Paducah song, and I needed Carmen Miranda in my everyday life.  I went with the vintage Paducah Postcard look, modernizing it into the things that we loved and not something everyone else thinks about. I started with the basic vintage look and in the letters added things WE LOVE about Paducah.  Of course the first thing added was Carmen (if you haven't seen The Gang's All Here, please do).  Next was the Atomic City. I really like how the city was toted as The Atomic City when all this space-age stuff was new and hip.  The "U" is full of things we love (mostly to eat), and I left room for a couple more things.  I had to include Wacinton, The American Queen, Coke Plant, and The Columbia too!  The "H" is full of things we like in the surrounding area and a little bit of Alben Barkley, who really needed a letter all to himself, but I just couldn't find a way to get it done.  Lastly, I added the Quilt City because we are the capital of all the quilts these days. 

I am absolutely in love with the way it turned out.  Next up, is another mural and a window so stay tuned. 

The mountains are calling and I must go

Anyone that knows me knows that I would rather be near the mountains than anything in this world.  That my soul longs to live amongest the snow capped peaks of a mountain range.  I have come to realize that I will visit them many times, but I will never be able to live there so when we moved and got this extra space I decided I had to make a room that would be called "The mountains are calling and I must go" from my favorite John Muir quote.  I thought about doing all 4 walls of an 8x8 room but decided I had better go with just two walls with the possibility of adding on in the future.  The focal point would be Denali and it would also serve as the headboard in this guest room.  You would make your way around the room to the left of Denali would be the National Park area.  To the right of Denali you would travel through Fairbanks and then down to the Stephen's Passage, to Glacier Bay National Park & Reserve, my absolute favorite place on the whole planet.  I worked on this room after work for about 2 weeks and I think, even though it is the smallest room in the house, it is my favorite.  I go in there every single day, even for just a few minutes.  I wish it was large enough to add a chair so I could read in there, but for now, I just sit on the bed and play with the cats.  The cats think this is their napping room and the bed is covered in cat hair (black comforter, white cat). 

The little places near Wasilla, I saw a flag there in a yard of a shopping plaza, no shopping plaza will be on the wall, but I put in the flag.  There is a surprise in the sky, a close up will be provided below.

Glacier Bay National Park and a tidewater glacier.  I did Michelle's version of the Muir, which is shrinking terribly.

Denali over the bed with the Northern Lights

My version of the Ruth Glacier Denali National Park

the flag in Wasilla

A surprise over Glacier Bay

Stephens Passage has a surprise on the tree

A surprise over Wasilla

My version of the Grand Pacific Glacier