Wintery Watercolor Forest Tutorial

It's almost Christmas! Yay!

Remember how I was decorating for this holiday with some golds and greens?  I had painted three versions of these watercolor pine trees to create a winter forest scene.  The painting process is memorizing and I'm in love with it!  

And now,  the Wintery Watercolor Forest Tutorial is up on the Craftsy Painting Blog.  The tutorial details the painting process in three different values.  You can even make a mini value scale to keep you on track as you paint.

So go try it out. You might just fall as much in love with painting these watercolor pine trees as I am!

Christmas Craft Tutorial: Rustic Wood Slice Ornaments

Homemade ornaments are the best! I grew up making salt-dough ornaments with my siblings and those were always the favorite ornaments to hang on the tree.  We may have fought a little over who got to hang the cinnamon roll ornament every year :)

If you're not into making huge messes with salt-dough, you can give wood slice ornaments a try this year.  They are very simple and relatively clean.  Plus they are right on-point with the rustic holiday trends!  Gotta love that style!

Read below to learn how to make your own customized family wood slice ornaments.

Materials:

• Wood Slices (2 1/2 inch) 
• Wallet Size Photos
• Drill or Dremel Tool
• Scissors
• Modge Podge
• Foam Brush
• Sharpie
• String

Step 1:  Drill a hole at the top of each ornament.

Although you can do this step later on, I prefer to drill the holes in the wood slices before I do anything else.  You can avoid having to drill through a photo that way. These holes will be used for the string that will hold your ornaments on the tree, so don't miss this important step!

If you have a drill, use a drill bit with a small diameter.  You can use a dremel tool too- that's what I used.

Step 2: Cut your wallet-sized photos to fit your wood slices.  

You can lay the wood slices on top of your photos and trace an outline to get a good fit.  Trim the photos so that they are slightly smaller than the outer edge of your wood slices.

Step 3: Modge Podge it!

With a foam brush, apply a layer of modge podge to the wood slice.  Then lay your cut photo on top of it. Press down for about ten seconds to make sure the photo adheres to the wood slice well. Wait a few minutes to dry, then apply another layer of modge podge on top of the photo to seal and protect it.

Step 4: Poke a Hole.

Once the modge podge is dry, you can use a pencil to poke through the photo to the hole at the top if your photo covers the hole.

Step 5:  Cut the string.

Cut your string to 5-6 inches long, thread it through the hole at the top of the ornament and then tie the ends together.  Simple!

Step 6:  Date it! (Optional) 

Use a sharpie to write a special message or date on the back of the ornament.  One day I dream of getting a wood-burning-tool so I can burn the date into the back. That would be awesome!

I made a few batches of these to give to the parents and in-laws as gifts this year.  I think they will be a hit!

DIY Watercolor Christmas Gift Tags

It's gift-giving season again! Ready to make some pretty watercolor gift tags? If you have some left-over watercolor paper scraps, this is the perfect use for them! 

Here's what you need:

watercolor paper

watercolor paints

paint brush

water

scissors

hole punch

string

Step 1: Paint!

Paint small watercolor trees, Christmas wreaths, poinsettia flowers, ornaments, or flower garlands on your watercolor paper scraps.

Have fun and play with your color palette.  I didn't paint any pink Christmas trees, but I think that would be an awesome idea! Also, don't worry about making these paintings look realistic.  The quicker and more fluid, the better.

Let dry.

Step 2: Cut

Cut your paintings out of the paper to make small tags.  For the wreaths, I cut around the edges of the painting.  For the trees, I used my paper cutter and made rectangular tags.

Step 3: Punch

Use a small hole punch to punch out a hole in the top of each of your tags.

Step 4:  Tie

Cut small lengths of string.  I used baker's twine purchased from the dollar store.  Tie a string through the hole at the top of each tag.

When your tags are all done, use a pen to write your "to's" and "from's" on your tags.  Use the loose ends of the strings to tie your beautiful watercolor gift tags to your gifts.

Happy gift giving!

Crochet Hats for Kids

It's been too long since I've posted a crochet project.  What can I say?!!  Life got busy and most of the time, if I do something creative, it involves painting.  But I still like crocheting, especially if it's something for kids.

Here are a couple of hats I made this fall. These make me smile!

The pom hat is one I sort of made up. I should have written down what I did, but it was an experiment.  It's loosely based on a hat pattern by Ali Crafts.

The bear hat was made from a pattern by JJ Crochet. 

Photos of the Week: Grove Creek Trail

Thanksgiving is almost here!!! Do you have your turkey ready?  I'm lucky this year. My very own mother is cooking the turkey for me. 

The fine fall weather has passed and it's cold now, but since I missed posting these hiking photos, I'm going to post them now and pretend that it isn't 30 degrees outside.  

It's a rare occasion when the husband has a day off at a time when our son is in school.  We took advantage of one warm afternoon and explored a new trail together to blow off some stress. The adoption home study is not for the faint of heart (and neither is hosting a birthday party with 13 little kids!).  With our home study, we have had to give so much information about ourselves, like really personal stuff, and we've had to do a lot of soul-searching to figure out how we really feel about things, our weaknesses and strengths, our parenting style, and so on. But, we know it will all be worth it one day. I can't wait for that day!

Holiday Home Decor Ideas: Decorate with Watercolor Winter Forest Paintings

We had our first snow of the season this week and it was magical! It got me in the mood to paint some winter forest scenes.

Turns out, painting misty, snowy forests are addicting.  I painted three versions and I'm working on a watercolor tutorial to show you how I painted them too! 

Once I had the paintings all finished, I popped them into some white frames and set them up with some golden Christmas decor.  I'm thinking I need to go with golds, greens, and whites for the holidays this year. I'm loving that color combination! My frosted twigs and scented pine cones are the perfect match for these three paintings.

For the Love of Pumpkins

I've been busy painting more versions of my mint pumpkin.  Pairing a pumpkin with flowers turned out to be awesome!  I need to do that more!

I actually got around to painting all of my mini-gourds and pumpkins this year. I set them up on my art room table and painted away.  They have such incredible shapes and colors.  I could have painted about twenty more of these, but ran out of time.  

Photos of the Week

Another beautiful week of beautiful weather, although, I wish it were more rainy or snowy here.  We need some kind of precipitation soon or my beautiful lake may dry up.  So sad to see it so low this year.

Well, it's November! A time to be grateful!

Last week I was grateful for:

• my camera (as always- i'd die without it)
• a good neighborhood with friendly neighbors (Halloween was a blast!)
• another art deal with Hobby Lobby!
• that my son didn't require any medical attention when he swallowed his loose tooth- it passed just fine :)
• my hard-working husband who earned himself a bonus
• my two-month-old nephew that I got to babysit on Friday night.  He is the sweetest baby ever.
• I had the privilege to vote early

Fall Florals and Pumpkins

It's been a crazy fall! I just finished a huge licensing project which I'm not able to write about yet. It involves car illustrations and comes out next summer.  So you'll have to wait a while to see those.

These little paintings I can write about, so I'll share some fall/ autumn watercolors I've been working on. I'm hoping they end up in Hobby Lobby next year.  Fingers Crossed they like these!

Photos of the Week

Happy Halloween!

My life feels like it is playing in fast-forward mode right now, but I did take some time for a nice walk one day last week.  The weather was perfect and the birds were out.  It was heavenly!

Between custom art orders, Halloween costumes, home study and adoption plans, my plate is more full than it has been in a long long time, but I'm grateful to feel well enough to handle it.

Many miracles have happened for my family since we decided to start down this difficult road to adoption. My health and energy have improved a lot and I didn't even change my medication! My business is doing well and we are finding ways to save money for an adoption.  I take these things as a sign that we are headed in the right direction. I've been reading a wonderful book about adoption and I get the strongest feeling that the Lord is very involved in every part of this process. He cares about us all so so much!

Floral Watercolors

I know it's fall and I should be painting things like pumpkins and leaves, but I just can't kick the florals.  They're too fun to paint!

These are three watercolor flower paintings on my desk at the moment:

one 11x14 and two small 4x6's

I used gouache for the first time on these and I love it! I love being able to add some white in at the end of the painting, instead of using masking fluid at the beginning.  Much easier and less messy. Sometimes, it pays to experiment with new mediums. Good things can happen :)

Washi Tape Gallery Wall

I'll admit it. I  have waaaaaaay too much art. Most of it is sitting in a cupboard in my art room, unused and lonely. It's about time I got it out of the cupboard and up on the wall!

I don't have nearly enough frames for all of these, so it's good thing I have washi tape! I created a gallery wall and used up two entire rolls of washi tape in the process. It was fun to make and I love all that color on my wall.

The two methods that work best for me are:
1) Place long strips on the top and bottom of a painting.
2) Cut four small strips and place them diagonally across each corner of a painting.

It also works better if the paintings are completely flattened, not warped. That can be a problem with watercolors paintings.