Having a Whale of a Time Painting on Glass

Three things you need to know about me:
1. I'm not a collector.
2. I get SADD in the winter.
3. I like to paint things.
With that said, I seem to have this weird (not-so-weird?) collection of whales growing. I had this old glass window laying around that seemed like the perfect medium for a project. What I discovered:
1. painting helps ward off those evil winter time blues, and
2. glass is really fun to paint on.
I had a dream about an orca whale the previous night, and I love this quirky painting at the children's museum, by Jay Ryan:

I hope my sad attempt to copy this painting isn't some sort of copyright infringement. If it is, I'll take this down, but for now consider this the highest form of flattery Mr. Ryan. 

So here's what I figured out when painting on glass:

 If you mess up you can wipe it off and start over,  but once your first layer of paint is dry, it will always show through on the other side.

 I realized this when I covered some "ripples" in the water I painted on this side, and then turned it over, only to find those sneaky ripples still there. 

Observe: front side, no ripples and the paint has lots of texture.

 Back side: very smooth and glossy, with ripples in the water. 

Here's Taliila painting the glass of and old frame. 

My little artist. 

Another thing I think would be fun to try is painting a chalkboard on an old piece of glass. It'd be such a smooth backdrop- I feel like the chalk would just glide over it. 

Real Estate Monday: Forest Hills

I haven't done a REM post in a while. Let's see how rusty I am.
This house is one of my favorite styles in Pittsburgh- the Frank Lloyd Wright style. Perfect for showcasing some cool mid century modern furniture. I've actually been in this house a couple years ago, and I find it adorable and quite affordable. Listed for $139,900 is a 3 bed, 2 bath home. Let me know if you'd like to see it in person.

136 Fairfax Rd,Pittsburgh, PA 15221 

Not a very telling picture of the front, but there's a massive deck for some great outdoor living on the front of the house. 

 I love BIG windows! And exposed brick... what a fun living space. 

 The living room flows around to the dining room and kitchen. 

 A kitschy, little powder room with some awesome 70's wall paper. 

  Not a bad master bath for a smaller home. 

How To Do a Collage Wall

I'm kind of a sucker for hanging my art in a collage-like fashion. This trend has been great for me because my house has very little wall space (lots of doors and pass-throughs) and I have a lot of meaningful art I want to display. 

There are a lot of helpful tricks to the trade out there. One good one is laying everything out on the floor so you get an idea of where you want to place your pictures. 

 As you can see, I switched it around a bit once I started putting them up on the wall. 

 More frequently, I just start slightly off center with a focal point, and then build around it. I like adding different textures and types of media to keep things interesting. A lot of my art work is done by family members, or items I've repurposed. Mirrors are also great add-ins and bring light into dark spaces. 

Really there's no rhyme or reason, but I try to keep everything close together so it looks like it's part of a whole. Items hung too far apart lose their collage effect. Make sense? 

The best part is, I can switch pictures in and out of the configuration for a quick change. 

Graffiti Art Dresser

Taliila (my 4 yr. old) and I painted this dresser back in the fall, and I'm just now getting to blog about it. Story of my life right now. This was a super-fun project to do and perfect for kids of any age.
First, we found a wooden dresser on Craigslist. Nothing special about it, and it was sort of beat up, which was perfect for redoing. I gave the fronts of the drawers a light sand just to get the grime off.

Next, I made my own chalk paint. This is super easy and costs much less than buying it at a specialty store. I let Taliila pick out a bunch of colors and had the paint guy at Lowes make me little samples of each of them. A little bit of chalk paint goes a long way, so you really only need those small sample sizes anyways. 

I had her paint the fronts any way she liked, but had to encourage her not to mix the colors too much. Her tendency was to keep mixing until the colors turned brown. 

I taught her how to splatter the paint across the drawers. Our driveway took quite the beating. 

I ended up doing the shell of the dresser, just keeping the design loose. 

 Voila. A simple weekend project and a colorful dresser for my daughter's room.