Tag Archives: Painting

Lockdown Life

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These last few weeks I have been struggling with the whole lockdown.  Tempers have been running short across the household and don’t get me started on homeschooling an eleven-year-old!

I have been trying to separate home and crafting where possible, but this is equally challenging due to having completely lost my dedicated crafting space.  My husband is working from home and needed a quiet office space, so my craft room is now the office.

We have done a complete redecorate of the space and it has made a real difference.  The whole room feels so much larger and calmer (I have to admit it was rather chaotic).

It was quite a fun project to do, involving removing old nursery furniture (it’s amazing how quickly it was removed from the drive), as well as stripping textured wallpaper and all the associated sanding, filling and painting.  Whilst new plug sockets and painting were being completed by my husband, I’ve had the joy of sorting through all of my crafting materials and associated accumulations!

It’s all been plonked in the front room for what feels like weeks, while I work my way through it all.  I didn’t quite realise how much stuff I have.  It’s been quite interesting to see what’s been hidden in  old cupboards and I might find the opportunity to use some things again in the coming weeks / months.  I’m sure some things will come back into fashion – paper crimper anyone?

After the main papering and painting had been finished, we had a new carpet fitted – what a luxury – it’s over twelve years since we’ve had new flooring anywhere and this feels lovely underfoot.  I was then set free with a geometric paint pattern above the picture rail. I did some practice with tester pots first, just to check it would work!

It took longer than I thought it would and it was very nerve-wracking hoping the paint hadn’t run under any of the masking tape.  Plus the colour choice was different!  It all looked pretty rubbish with the orange masking tape.

The unveiling when quite well, I think.  There are a few little smudges but overall is looks OK to me (It certainly helps that it’s high up).

Since all the painting has been done, we had to wait for Ikea to open for the storage to finish everything off.  We took inspiration for the room from an Ikea Kallax image on their site, so plumped for the Kallax storage solution.  My daughter had fun deciding on the box / door / shelf / drawer arrangement.  It looks great and there is a lot more space to move around in there now.  I still haven’t managed to store everything in there and I’m not sure there is actually quite enough storage for all my bits and pieces – I certainly have more books and magazines than I thought!

Unfortunately, as lovely as the finished room is, there is little chance of me being able to make use of it as my husband is working from home for the foreseeable future.  So I will have to continue to content myself with card-making at the kitchen table and knitting / crochet in front of the television in the evenings (for now).

Happy crafting

x

Art fun with the kids

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A few weeks ago I became aware of a local activity that was starting to gain in popularity.  I think I stumbled across it in a post in facebook.  It’s called Rammy Rocks and involves painting on small rocks and pebbles and then leaving them for other people to find.  It’s not unique as there appear to be groups all over the country (if not the world) that have taken to leaving lovely messages on stones for people to find.

This one has really taken off in the local area, with a couple of talented Mums using this to get their children being creative and getting them outside.  Rammy Rocks seems to have captured the imagination of hundreds (if not thousands) of local residents.  and it’s not limited to the children either, there are loads of talented artists painting little rocks and hiding them about for people to find.

I, personally, am loving this craze.  It’s great fun to go out and find some pretty stones while on a walk.  So we’ve been doing a fair bit more walking over the last couple of weeks.  It’s a shame the weather has been so rubbish as we would have liked to get out a bit more.  (So it’s been great for getting Alice away from her tablet and minecraft and it’s doing me some good too).

We had a couple of snow days from school which meant we missed World Book Day (much to Alice’s disappointment), so I decided we would make the most of it and paint some book inspired rocks to hide later.

I have to say Alice’s are far superior to my efforts!  Her Matilda and Wimpy Kid rocks are quite brilliant.

We have great fun hiding the rocks too.  Alice rather likes to give them to people rather than hide them for other’s to find, so several of our efforts have been left on doorsteps of her friends.

We will be painting and hiding more over the next few weeks as well as going out and about to find some more.  As we have a trip to Southampton planned for the Easter holidays I think we might be finding some to take down there.  I’m also working on Alice’s Brownie leader to get them to make some to hide in the local park and woods.

It’s great to see all the posts from people when they find them and I’m not sure whether I’m more excited to find a great rock or to see one of mine that’s been found!

I hope we get some more nice weather soon and we can get out to hunt for rocks again soon.

Happy Rocking

xx

Paint-a-Pot

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As we approach the end of the school year, we seem to be on a never ending run of parties – and not just children’s.

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What I am pleased to find is that now she’s seven, Alice’s party invitations have become a bit more adventurous than a soft play centre.  Today we’ve been at Emily’s Paint-a-Pot in Prestwich. Each child was able to choose an animal to paint and was given instruction on how to go about it. It felt far more grown up than the usual running wild amidst screaming kids of all ages! So we left them to it and had a stroll around Heaton Park before the rain set in and we headed back. The party room is upstairs and we could hear squeals of delight along with the traditional rendition of ‘Happy Birthday to you.’ They were all obviously having a great time. We stayed downstairs in the main painting room, where we had a very lovely cuppa and a look at all the drying pots. It’s a pretty little place and they don’t just cater for children. I was intrigued to see they run Pottery and Prosecco evenings. Something I quite fancy, I wonder why?!

Alice really enjoyed her afternoon. She painted a cat and can’t wait for it to be finished off in the kiln.

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It’s a great place to go on a rainy day, and while not a cheap activity, it is something different to what we generally do at home, so it’s definitely somewhere I hope to visit again. Next time I want to have a go too.

Happy crafting
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