Starlord's blaster

: one of Alex's costumes for Wizard World this year was Starlord from Guardians of the Galaxy. Stan Lee was scheduled to be at the event this year and this is one of his movies (he had to cancel due to pneumonia.) We didn't plan ahead very far this year since we weren't originally planning on attending, so i bought most of the costume. I did paint the blaster. I started with a toy that is complete with some lights and sound effects. My skills don't particularly lie in painting, but I'll get better with practice. I do like how this one turned out and it looked great with her costume.

Star Wars Paint By Number

Alex and I started some paint by number projects earlier this year. I found her some downloadable beginner print by number pieces. They're super cute and still in progress; I will definitely show those pictures soon. I got myself some advanced versions of the downloadables that go with Alex's sets. I also set out to find some geeky ones for long term projects for myself. I was looking to find some Doctor Who, but I didn't really find any that I liked yet. I might draw my own and print some on canvas paper. I did however find some awesome Star Wars paint by number. I found this old kit (circa 70s i believe) in its original packaging and sealed on eBay cheap. the paints are all dried up so I'm just using them as reference. I've been painting bits on this after Alex and I do a color on our smaller paint projects. I think this one might take me until I'm 90 to finish, but so far i'm loving it.

life is better at the lake

life is better at the lake: so true. and in helvetica. i made this wood sign as a birthday gift to be hung at theIR cottage on the lake in canada. i have helvetica stencils in 2 sizes; i think 2 inch and 4 inch. so i plotted out what size i needed the board to be and my husband cut me a piece of nice plywood at 15x15 inches. i painted a couple of coats of blue stain - which is harder to find colored stain than one might think. i saw a tutorial on pinterest about drawing out your letters with a pen first and when you painted the letters you'd have perfect edges because the paint would basically well up in the pen line ridge. that did not work well for me at all. seriously, i would recommend against that technique. the well of the pen line did nothing for me and worse than that the ink from the pen bled into the white paint. so i had to do extra coats of white paint in order to cover up the blue ink bleed, and even went over the edges with a white paint pen as well. so i used white acrylic paint for the letters and carefully painted within my templated pen lines. after i did several coats of the white paint is when i went over all the edges of the letters with the paint pen. in the end, the letters look pretty good, however not perfect, but oh well, handmade has character. i wanted the sign to be indoor/outdoor ready since i didn't know where it would be hung. so i painted several coats of mod podge outdoor sealant on all sides of the sign. you have to be super patient here because the layering of this thick sealant takes forever to try, and the humidity in ohio does not help that along at all. it was still somewhat tacky to the touch a month later when i went to wrap the sign (so i wrapped it in freezer paper first to be safe.) the sign is hanging on an outside wall of the cottage now and i believe holding up well.

refinishing the dollhouse: painting part 3

getting closer. i painted the accent walls in each room, i like the colors but the blue tape thing did not give me very nice edges. my friend gave me a suggestion on a better way to use that blue tape next time - she said to paint your first layer after taping the color that's next to it (in this case, the white paint) then paint the accent color. that way if a color bleeds it would have been the white and not the accent color. good to know for next time i need to paint something. also, that accent color really makes the white mess ups on the window pop! oh well. i also painted the roof. i was planning on it being a nice chocolate brown, but i must have actually grabbed the wrong can of paint because it turned out gray (almost the exact same gray that it was already) but it still freshened up the color and covered the chips and it only took two coats of paint. the accent walls also took two coats of paint.

refinishing the dollhouse: painting part 2

i finally got around to white washing the whole interior of the dollhouse and touching up the trim and steps on the outside. wow, the interior took 3 coats of paint to get it covered (had to cover up the old wallpaper that didn't scrape off completely and the wiring). and i didn't do the best job with the windows as you can see but the windows are so damaged anyways that i'm kind of ok with that - maybe i'll be able to scrape some of that off later. alex helped me paint the insides and the window frames and such. she has been bugging me to be able to play with the dollhouse a lot lately, which obviously has a lot of work still to do on it, but i feel bad taunting my daughter with this great toy that she can't even touch yet, so right now my goal is to hurry up and get this into playing condition. next step is roof, then painting accent walls and fireplaces and then flooring.

painting the interiors

so, finally, after being in our house for over 10 years we painted some walls! and wow, what a difference it makes, don't you think? actually, i can't take much credit, i helped pick out the colors, but my husband did all the work - thank you. the colors are from the martha stewart collection of interior paints and they're just our style. and those colors really make the paintings and pictures pop. (please ignore some of the general mess or sleeping dog on the couch.) my husband even painted the ceilings too, which doesn't have much wow effect in these pictures, but it really helps to brighten and clean up a room. he used blue painters tape, some tarps, and 2 coats of paint in each room. and he had some "help" painting from our three year old (which everyone knows really helps make a job easier.)

refinishing the dollhouse: painting part 1

i painted the outside main color of the dollhouse. and of course it's green, since alex tells me almost daily that her favorite color is green, so that will be a main color of the entire dollhouse. this paint is a martha stewart line of colors, and i think it looks great. check out this post to see the original color:
http://boogiebeans.blogspot.com/2010/04/refinishing-dollhouse-part-1.html
next step is to start the white paint, or the roofing, not sure yet.