Handmade Christmas

This year, besides all of the painting for various customers, friends, and gifts that I made, I made some things for my own family!  This is part of what makes the month of December so busy for me, because besides all of the gifting and decorating and baking, I am painting for my customers, and then for my loved ones as well!  I like to make an effort to paint for people that I love, not just for orders.  Primarily, because I love to do it, and what's better than sharing what you love to do with the people that you love?  But also, because it is my talent, and I know family and friends are who appreciate our talents most.

Here' a bit of what I have been painting:

This is one of my favorite paintings - it was done on an old barn door that Hubby and I had acquired.  I painted and weathered it, and then he build a frame.  The background is white-washed, while the frame and lettering are all different shades of olive green.  This was an order for close friends of ours, and we were so happy to do it!  The best part is, it's 2 feet by 4 feet!  I love taking on a new challenge, and then tackling it.  If Reilly were standing next to it, it's bigger than she is!

This is a painting I made for my parents, adapted from one I had seen on the internet to be more personal to us and to the style of their house.  Canvases like this with lots of words always make me feel like I'm going to misspell something, even though I have yet to do it.  This one was a big hit. :)

Also a big hit, this one I made for my Reilly girl.  She LOVES reading all her "Elmo books", and naming every single character.  The decor for her and baby's new room is going to be "Rainbow Polka Dots", so I got this idea to make the "polka dot" characters.  She names them all and kisses them, it's so cute.

This is Reilly's hand print, and is a recreation of a painting I had made when I was three.  My parents still have it hung in their house every year, and my mom could cry just looking at it.  Clearly, this was a tear-jerker!  The berries are finger prints. :)

This is Reilly footprint, and we made it for Uncle E and Mimi's house.  Uncle E LOVES penguins, so it was fitting.  Also, one of their bathrooms has a penguin theme, so this is perfect!  And who doesn't love a teeny foot?  I mean really.

This we made for Hubby's parents, because again, who doesn't love teeny hands and feet??  I think these will be so special when she is older and everyone has little keepsakes of her tiny-ness at 1 year old.  When I ask her if she wants to paint now, she point to the palm of her hand, because she thinks it means we're going to do prints again. HA!

This is just a tiny snippet of what we painted this year!  I also made one for Daddy, which is Reilly's footprint turned into a reindeer!! Too cute.

And you can imagine, any day that included a Reilly-painting day was sure to be messy!  But always fun.  Hope you liked seeing some of our creations!