Tutorial...or NOT Tutorial? THAT is the Question.

This is not the key to my heart. I'm MOVING! My fam has lived in our current house for 4 years, since we moved up to Washington from Arizona. We're getting cramped & need space. I'm so excited! We'll be able to take things over in a leisurely manner. It's only 5 inutes away & it's a house that our landlord just moved OUT of. There's a GIANT room in the basement that will serve as my art studio, the office & the girls' playroom. I've always pictured a space where I can be creating....my girls are in the same space doing their thing....we're all happy, singing lovely songs in 3-part harmony.....flower petals are falling from the sky.... HAHA! Anyway, the only MAJOR sucky thing is Mr. WhiMSy love & my bedroom. It's in need of some love. I'm on a makeover mission. I'll totally do a "before" & "after" picture thingie!

Now for my tutorial...or not...thinigie. I totally didn't intend for this to be a "how-to", but after I realized how many pics I took I realized that it sorta looks that way. It's that time of month again (no, not THAT time of month) when I need to prepare crafty goodness for my MOPS group--a gaggle of about 35 ladies, all mommies. I really do enjoy this because it gives me a chance to try new things & that's what this project is--new. I'll be glass painting, something I always thought would be fun to try. In fact, I believe I saw a blip in the most recent issue of Country Home magazine with drinking glasses painted with sweet flowers & filled with fresh picked blooms.

The picture above is pet peeve #1. Woops, I mean STEP #1. One down, 34 to go... You're supposed to wipe them down with alochol & THEN wash. But I forgot the alcohol part. Great start Nikki.

These are the paints. I did a lot of running around today to Craft Warehouse, Michael's & JoAnne's Fabrics (**hi reindeer!....Sorry, inside joke.**) to find what I needed. These were bottles of paints for $1.99 at JoAnne's. The other paints I saw required ventilation--which we don't have in our facility, OR they required 2 coats of paint with an hour dry time in-between each coat--& I have barely an hour to do the craft. So this was MY best choice. And you can mix colors, which is nice. UPDATE: Several people have written to ask about the paints so I thought I'd provide a close-up of the bottles. They look EXACTLY like acrylic paints, but they're made for glass & ceramics. A little goes a loooong way! And don't get the paint too thick or you'll just end up with a design full of unattractive bubbles. The paint is waterbased & non-toxic. It is not meant to come in contact with food, which is why I painted the design on the BOTTOM of the plate. I've used mine & washed it & is still perfect!! For other MOPS Creative Activities Leaders, I would suggest also providing the moms with magazines, or, print out birthday clip-art to give them ideas of what to paint.

One tiny bit of info that is important is that these paints are not food safe. And, we're painting those fun "birthday" plates used for those special days. My idea was to paint the BACK of the plate. I don't know if the surface will get scratched or what. My cool-beans idea of the day was to use a dry-erase marker to draw my design on the FRONT of the plate. I'm fine with painting freehand, but when writing letters backwards, NOT so good. I ended up wiping this design completely off because I realized that I should have done the fine little details first, as in this next picture...

Cute polka dots, cute cupcake trim & I painted cute dark brown lines on the cupcake "liner".

Everything else was painted in after the small details dried. The photo doesn't show so well, but there are streaks in the paint--for that "handpainted " look.

The final details were the large yellow ("lemon custard" to be exact) polka-dots. The back doesn't look so pretty. But no one will see that. Well, I guess they will--YOU just did.

Set in a cool oven, bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees, let cool in oven & then take out. Or you can air-dry for 3 weeks. Isn't it cute?? It is hand-washable (although I have not washed it or used it--I'm kinda nervous!) & is dishwasher safe on the top rack. My girls LOVE it & want to use it right away. I guess I should make an UN-birthday one so we'll get more use out of it.

*To see the "Sweet Day" plate I made my niece (which looks exactly the same, except for the wording, click HERE.)

Geez. Another late night post. That's how I roll most of the time. And what a LOOOONG post too! I'm out of blog breath. Tomorrow though I'm going to reveal my dad's super surprise for his birthday. I'm excited for him to get it! Oh & I can't wait to buy cute things for the house tomorrow while the girls are in preschool & I have mommy time! YAY! No more blabbing. I gotta go!---Project Runway is starting soon!