Spreading the Love - Pinterest Challenge

Well, I've meant to participate in the Unofficial Pinterest Challenge hosted by Katie @ BowerPower and Sherry @ YoungHouseLove, but never really got around to getting a project finished and a post written in time. 

Even though it is that nutty time of the year for school psychs, I was determined to do it.  I was hoping to show my DIY curtains... but I haven't finished them.  Then I thought maybe I'd have some wall art up in the living room...  yeah, didn't get that done either.  Okay, so what about finishing a painting of Rudder I started this summer?  Not enough time.  Kevin and I went to Talkeetna this weekend, and I've been Snotty McSnotterton with a cold since last week, therefore I had a limited amount of time (aka Tuesday night, which was already scheduled for some good ol' report writing for work...).

So, I remembered that I've been wanting to spread awesomeness.  More specifically, I wanted to spread the love.

If you know me, I'm not a lovey dovey mushy gushy type.  Not at all.  Valentine's Day is my least favorite holiday.  I'd rather celebrate Flag Day.

I'm a recent fan of Kit over at the DIY Diva.  She's hilarious and has an awesome old farm house that she's fixing up.  I'm also pretty envious of her power tools...  Anyways, she has this a Random Acts of Awesome website.  Ya know, just spreading awesomeness into strangers life.  I love that.

Pinned by me (kristalee3) via Kit

Lately I've been feeling the lack of love between people at work, that unconditional acceptance and love for people.  Ya know, that wanting the best for them, even if they aren't your blood relative or best friend.  So, feeling somewhat unsuccessful at making awesome strides in this compassion for all kiddos/people at work, I think I'm going to just spread little reminders around town.

Oh and I love rocks.

And painting rocks.

It goes back to elementary school.

Anyways, here's what I did, and what I plan on continuing to do:

1. Paint a heart and a "love _____" statement on rocks.
2. Spread said rocks around town as I'm out and about.
3. Hopefully make at least one person smile, or think about loving one another. :o)

Here's a few iPhone pictures from late last night of the last minute Pinterest Challenge project. :o)

 

All of my river rocks are buried in a foot of snow/ice, so I had to use little rocks I had in the house.  Future rock painting will be a bit bigger, and rounded, well loved stones.  :o)

Off to spread some love around Anchorage! :o)

Art Fail

There has been quite the long progression of what will grace the wall above the couch.  First it was black and white photography of mine.  I was going to do the whole architectural prints onto blue board.  Turns out that black and white photography totally clashes with my paint color on the wall...  Then it was photo canvases of some of my prints from Kennecott...  Then that was pretty pricey, and it turns out you can't custom make random canvas sizes.  So then I moved from a photography mindset to a paint-oriented mindset.

Well, in my mind I thought some tree ring art would be awesome above the couch.  First I was thinking ginormous canvas and doing a watercolor of the tree rings.  The ideas surrounding watercolor ranged from more realistic, to wonderfully abstract.

Then I totally changed my mind.

Surprise, surprise!  :o)



Clearly the next step in my filling-the-void-above-the-couch venture was plywood.

Here's what I ended up making one night while watching reruns of Sabrina the Teenage Witch (I'll admit it, and ya know what, it was funny to watch it and go "oh man, I used to wear that too...  yikes!") on Hulu.  

 The idea was to heavily white wash paint the tree ring outlines onto the thin plywood, then reinforce the back to hang it.  I thought the wood grain behind it would be kinda neat.  I also liked the idea of light colored art since it would pop more against the light gray'ish tan walls, and not make the room small feeling.  

Please ignore the frog tape.  I was planning out size proportions of built in bookshelves (coming soon'ish - hopefully!) and wall art with the wall size and couch.

Here's another shot of the room to show the slant of the wall.  Oh and the lovely papasan chair, ceiling fan, torch light, and stair rails that are just screaming awesome style.  ;o)  Work in progress folks, work in progress.  

I ALMOST like it when I see it in these pictures.  In person though, it just isn't right.  :o(  

Kevin still thinks I should hang up some of my photography and I'm CONSIDERING doing a 3x3 grid of 8x10 photos of mine... but I still am a bit hung up on the idea of LARGE art.  I have an idea for a large panel project...  I think it'd be awesome and also give me the excuse to break out the hammer and saw... BUT I'm not certain if it'd work with the room as a whole...   Who knows.  

All I do know, is that something needs to get up on this wall! 

 

Making Mugs

I have seen tutorial after tutorial on Pinterest on using a sharpies on porcelain.  I think I pinned one of them over a year ago.  In true Krista fashion, I just now got around to trying it out.  :o)

Oh, and pardon the pics.  I took them before I left for work (which was like 7:00 am, which is also pitch black dark in December)

One of my schools was auctioning off cookie trays to benefit Abused Women's Aid in Crisis (AWAIC) in Anchorage.  Last year they were able to donate over $1000 (this is my more affluent school) from parent/teacher bids on cookies.  Well, give me any excuse to bake copious amounts of cookies and I will do just that.  :o)  I wanted to try hot chocolate on a stick (FAIL!) and serve it in custom mugs with marshmallows (I toyed with the idea of trying to make my own... but then I realized I was uber busy) and homemade sugar cookies.  I'd share the sugar cookie recipe, but its a family one from my Great Aunt Dorothy that I'm not ready to share yet.  Maybe next year. ;o)

Okay, like I was saying... mugs.  I picked up two plain white porcelain mugs for $1 at the thrift store with "good lines" (dunno why I felt the need to stick that in quotations... It just felt right...).  I followed this tutorial from A Beautiful Mess.  I drew on them freehand, then baked them at 350* for 30 minutes.  Cooled, washed, then ready to go!

I went with "Merry and Bright" and "Comfort & Joy" because I love how two (okay, technically three) words can encompass the coziness of the holidays during the darkness that is Winter.  Love, love, love!

Here are the final platters I brought in.  No clue how much they auctioned for, but hey, they went for something, and that something went for good.  Oh, and I got to be a bit artsy fartsy and decorate mugs AND cookies!  Sounds like a win-win-win to me! :oD