A Busy Weekend

Hope your weekend was good. We had an extra busy and creative long weekend at home. (Thanks to the Queen's Birthday holiday.) Jim worked on storage solutions for the garage, which has been a long time coming. And I worked on a few pieces of furniture for the house. 

First of all we had an old pine dining table sitting in the garage, not making itself very useful. So we cut the legs off that and sanded it back and now I am converting into a kids craft/ art table. Whoever thought kids tables should be the sizes they are normally are in the shops had rocks in their head. I don't know about your household; but if you have young kids and a teeny table, stuff ends up all over the floor. There's not enough room for their materials and space to draw. 

I whizzed down to the local hardware store to choose some paint. I usually get all confused and worried and nervous about choosing paint colours from paint chips (funny- for an artist?) But I decided just to go in and go with my gut and choose the first colours that jumped out at me. I chose garden picket, and emerald wave. In about 3 minutes, seriously!

So here's the table with two coats of paint..

And here it is after I'd attacked the legs with a wash of teal. I'm loving the effect that it produced. I just mixed a big squirt of my normal artists acrylic paints and thinned it down 50:50 with water. I then painted that on and wiped it over with a wet rag. I also scumbled the wet rag around a bit and used a dry brush to soften some of the lines & add a bit of texture. I plan on adding a wash to the top, probably in a earthy orange colour.

Detail of the "glaze":

I also had a couple of wooden Ikea chairs that I have been meaning to paint for, oh I don't know, almost 4 years! 

The kids were SO upset that they could not help me paint the table. (Miss Stevie is still trying to convince me to let her paint a teddy bear on the top), so I let them help me start the chairs. It was good to let them be involved in a part of the process, but bless their little souls, this is more of a Mamma job!

Here are the chairs with their base coats on.. (I was thinking 'vintage candy' colours when I chose the paint... & Miss Stevie was happy she got to help paint the "ice cream" colour.)

I'm looking forward to seeing the whole set come together with their glazes, and then a final varnish for protection with an oil based polyurethane. Then there will be the task of finding some funky baskets and storage for their supplies. Pinterest always comes up trumps in that area for inspiration! 

And as an afterthought, here are some shelves I also worked on a bit this weekend. These are meant to attach directly onto a wall in the kids room somewhere for them to display all of their creations. This is a project that had fallen by the wayside (along with my tree project) when I lost motivation to complete the kids room. This happens sometimes, doesn't it? Projects loose momentum, and you get feelings of guilt for not achieving. 

I have so many projects that I am working on... and in my head waiting in line to begin. And I feel like some of them wont be finished (or started) for a long time. Sometimes when you read crafty blogs you get this idea that other people have it all together, and that they are achieving so much. I'm sure most of them have to be human and have all the time constraints and issues we all have. Are you creative? Do you struggle with feelings of underachieving compared to others? You can be sure I have all those thoughts! Especially when my kids were younger and I'd see people blogging & achieving so much with young kids! I'd think- how do they do it!? 

Every time I get some free time I am thinking (as an example): Should I do more to the paper mache tree?...What about the bathroom, I do want to make some pom poms for the light shade... I really should go and pick up dog poo in the backyard... or what about sewing the curtain for the living area downstairs... or vacuuming, there's so much dust... I really should make something to eat... maybe I could work on my painting... or prepare that new print... I need more time... I'd love to do a cross stitch... I have to finish that card design... and so on and so forth. Does your brain also work like this!? And then when I'm working on something, the creative juices are flowing and I have more ideas for half a dozen new projects I'd like to start!

In the end when I feel overwhelmed I have realised I just need to start on something. I wander around and pick up a project that has been started, or I write a list of all my projects and prioritise them. Then priority number one is worked on. So, I'm going to do that now... but first, a cup of tea ;)