Tag: Birthday

Reading Journal 2024 | Theme, Plans & Creativity!

Published on by gotmeghanLeave a comment

Hi 🙂

Last year I tried my hardest to publish my second year of doing a reading journal, and I had everything ready for it, I just could not finish the actual post. I don’t really understand why I never felt comfortable with it; although the photos might’ve been a factor early on. I was just disappointed in myself because I was fairly proud of what I had created in those twelve months.

Now that we’re started anew, I knew one of the posts I desperately wanted to do was my Reading Journal and I’m thoroughly. excited to share it with you. Although, I will mention two pages are saved back for my next post which will discuss my Goodreads Challenge for 2024.

Cover Page

I was tempted to go with Little Women by Louisa May Alcott this year. I had truly enjoyed that story and honestly, it would have played well with the number of vintage supplies I have at my arsenal, but I became inspired to do something with Winnie–the–Pooh after we got a package of wipes with Pooh’s upper face with stripes of green behind him. I loved this so much that I just went with it. I even added a few snowflakes on top to symbolize the end of one theme to beginning a brave new world.

Towards my birthday I had started looking into Winnie-the-Pooh stickers, and I was literally coming up with nothing on Amazon. I was shocked! However, I knew I wanted to do something with a honeycomb design and so I switched my searches and found a stencil of hexagons shapes, but I couldn’t buy it on its own, it came with a few other designs, and one of them was this tulip wreath and I’ve always wanted to do a circle design at the start of the new year and thankfully, it was fairly easy to hold down with my toes. I also used my pencil to draw up some faint lines in between as a banner saying “Reading Journal 2024” in my best cursive ever!

The Bumblebee Bookshelves

After those pages, I went to create my bookshelves. Many people who keep a reading journal usually create these very elaborate designs and yes, I always want to do one for my journals but anytime I attempt to make a shelf it turns out to be too small and oddly enough so do the spines of the books I draw out.

My inspiration for this was totally out of the box, as I just pictured the inside of a beehive of dripping honey stuck in my head and I completely fell in love with it. And luckily for me, in the pack of stencils, they had array of thick honey drips that were set with a straight line on top, and once I got going, apparently, I couldn’t stop…. I had made as many as I could on those two pages, I went with my black pen and quickly realized I had made WAYY too many spines. It is definitely over my goal for the year, but that’s what happens with me sometimes.

Daily Reads & Quote

The first of the next two spreads was my daily reads. Last year, I went with a different design, I actually got it from Cassandra Lynn’s layout, but it was super difficult to create on my own; my dad had to help me in the end. So, when I was ready to do this year’s, I knew I’d go back to my pixel grid I had for the year before, but this was in no way a walk in the park for me either.

I had to create this design FOUR times before I was finally over it. The whole thing was a fucking disaster to say the least! The funny part about it was, I ended up doing the whole thing for Eeyore, because he is always so depressed and I was just a mixed bag of emotions throughout the process, that Eeyore spoke to me early on. And yes. I do know I spelled he’s name wrong, and the words are running off the paper, but I keep telling myself that’s just part of Eeyore’s charm.

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“It never helps to keep looking for sunshine.”

When I began to look for the stencils, I also thought it would be interesting to see if I could work with scrapbook paper. I previously got a plastic cutter, I truly hate asking for help, especially when it’s for stuff like this and when I saw other people using this device, I thought this could change my whole outlook on cutting things for the first time. I may work with my feet, but I do have my limits! 

Anyways, I had two packages of scrapbook paper in similar colors, and I cut out a medium square of a black and yellow plaid design and I have another page with little quotes, but there was one that was blank so you could write on it yourself. It even had lines on it, so I didn’t have to measure anything else that day. It’s a simple quote page and I think it’s so sweet.

Series Trackers, Lovely Names and Words & Reading Log

There were two spreads I desperately wanted to do and the first was a series tracker. As many of other bookworms out there, we can start a lot of various trilogies and series, but have a difficult time to finish them, at least I have in the past. In my hope to conqueror this, I decided to create some trackers for seven different series. They are: The Plantagenet and Tudor novels by Philippa Gregory, Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice, Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake, Circle B Ranch by Kennedy Fox, and finally the Twilight books.

I really tried my best to go easy on myself when I started to do these and. I was fairly impressed with how I got the background paper cut and glued down (had LOTS of issues with glue!) but when it came time to figure out how to create the boxes and banners for each section, I guess I didn’t do enough homework beforehand because it all went to hell in a matter of ten minutes, but I allowed myself to laugh at my struggles and honestly, that happened my self-esteem a lot.

While I was busy with everything, I also managed to listen to four episodes of LuAnna: The Podcast on Spotify and that kept me from losing my mind in those two hours. In the end, everything worked out well and I improvised when lids didn’t want to come off and I messed up the ripping of my banners/trackers. They always say “laughter is the best medicine” and I truly believe it, because there were a few times where I just wanted to throw it all away.

In between this spread, I created my notable Lovely Names & Words sections. Since I started working on my reading journal in 2022, I wanted to collect my favorite and/or odd words I’d never heard of before. Every page has a light pencil or sometimes a pen, that create the spaces in between so that my words don’t go sliding off the page like it did in the Eeyore layout, I did a bees’ dashes like its flying in and out of the top of the opening page in green, However, the ‘Lovely Names’ part had to be fixed up and I used some scraps of an previous layout and that worked out very well for me and in a way, I hope I can recreate it in a future spread because I keep all of my bigger sections.

And finally, we have the reading log. I have been dying for a proper place to all of my books, but mainly because I feel like Goodreads, doesn’t allow you to half stars; I used the colors of T-I-Double G-GER. And one of the things I really wanted to get this year was one of those white pens and I got a pack of three separate sizes, and they arrive at the same time as my new colored pens and so my dad swatches every single one and he was thoroughly impressed with the white pens the most!

So, here is my final addition. The start of Reading Log pages has a thick orange lined to separate each book I read, and I have a small section for the dates and finally an even smaller section for my rating five “stars” (I can’t do a star that small – never have actually!) so, I switch them with circles instead, and I find this way to be easier for me and my feet.

I didn’t exactly know where to put this, but here are all of the supplies I could find that were similar to what I’ve used with my journal. The supplies I used were from Amazon.

It took me forever to edit everything, but I’m glad I am finished. I hope you have enjoyed this post, and maybe it will inspire you to create a reading journal for yourself. If you decide to actually do one over spring break or the start of summer, please keep me informed because I would love to see what you were able to do with yours.

snowflake

Blogmas: Nolan & Meghan’s DIY Christmas Project

Published on by gotmeghanLeave a comment

Hello!

I think my time of creating Christmas ornaments are done for now at least. Technically, I’m not done, I’m just not doing them by myself anymore. This year my nephew decided to accompany me on this conquest.

What you will need for this project:
  • Unfinished wooden ornaments – Gnomes & Reindeer
  • Super Tip Crayola Markers
  • Decorative String (optional as many packs of ornaments come with them)
  • Baby Wipes
  • Full of creativity (and energy!)

For my birthday, I got a huge box that was full of two large bags of Christmas ornaments. I had plans to do gnomes and gingerbread men this year, but I couldn’t find an even number of both characters, so I looked for reindeer and they were so cute on the site, and I knew everybody would enjoy them just as much and once my nephew saw the ornaments, h immediately wanted in on everything that had to do with them.

Honestly, it was amazing to see how much excitement he had for these gnomes, because I feared he wouldn’t like them, but I was very wrong with that assumption.

He comes over for a slumber party every Friday (unless his mom or dad have other plans with him) and he looks for the massive box they’re stored in and arranges one from each baggy on the opposite side of my little table. We have five gnomes in a different ensemble while one reindeer head or face, and it doesn’t matter how many times I tell Nolan they don’t have to be Rudolph, because it’ll go in one ear and out the other, so there are many Rudolph on his side.

I’ve done some kind of ornament since 2014. I worked on them with my nana first and she was fine with using paint to decorate anything, including glitter (although there were years, she tried to cut me off!) but even after she moved up north, I still used acrylic paint for everything. I never thought to use markers before. My little nephew literally grabbed my box of markers and went to town on his stack, and I was speechless!

After I recovered from this epiphany, the ideas didn’t stop coming to neither one of us. Since he is in kindergarten now, he has learned how to stay in the lines, but for these ornaments he is able to scribble or use a LOT of black on his characters. He is definitely a fun of darker colors mixed in with some neon here and there. And since he loves these coloring so much, he usually has the sides of his hands smeared with fresh markings. He wears them like they are his tattoos or something!

We actually have one gnome we call the “Pawpaw Gnome” because I told Nolan he reminded me of my dad/his papaw. This one has a full and long bread with deer antlers poking out of his hood. I tend to go with my favorite colors that actually look great on my dad. I know dad enjoys the fact that he has a gnome dedicated to him, even though he no longer wears his bread/hair long anymore.

My second favorite is the girl gnome or has a feminine touch as it has pig tails in a bow standing out of the hood. The hat itself has medium and small size circles throughout and I like to add shadows on them to make them pop out a little more. This is the only gnome I’ll use a bright pink shade because it reminds me of the girly aspect.

I liked this one so much that I kept it back for myself as a little gift. The color scheme is made up of the Frozen films and The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen, I used on this year’s reading journal. I never had the perfect moment to publish what I was doing in the journal at the beginning of 2023, but I wanted to give you an idea of how everything turned out inside my journal. So, this gnome has my main colors: pink and green for Princess Anna and light blue and purple for Queen Elsa. Unfortunately, I didn’t refer to any other characters in my journal, but I added a bright orange to mimic Olaf’s carrot nose for the gnome’s pigtails and gave her brown boots to represent Kristoff and Sven.

I’m hoping by the time this post goes out, Nolan and I are finished with them and have been sent to their owners. If not, I hope you enjoy reading about my nephew and I’s new tradition. I think it will be probably three more years before my niece Kimber will join us. It’ll be interesting to see if Nolan wants to continue doing them with me once that time comes, but I’m focusing on the “now” rather than the future.

What kind of holiday craft(s) were you working on this holiday season? For those who include young kids, how do you help convince them to continue the traditions you’ve built with them?

snowflake

November Playlist

Published on by gotmeghanLeave a comment

Hello!

Since I’ve been kind of turning these monthly playlists into mini wrap ups, I figured this was the perfect way to talk about October and why exactly I was staying at a nursing home for a bit.

So, let’s rewind back to around August as it was the month where everything went up a notch.

My dad has a lot of health issues, but at the end of summer, we started noticing he was losing the usage of his right arm. He has had many MRIs and X-Rays in the past few years and the majority of his trouble areas are in and around his neck and spine. He has broken several discs in the past, but now as he ages, he’s continued to add more arches and pains. He has been told to have surgery since I was a kid, but he’s always turned them down for risking his ability to take care of me. If you’ve ever met my dad, you know how stubborn he is, so you wouldn’t expect anything less from him, especially for something like this.

Four years ago, when my mom had her surgeries, I made the decision to staying in a nursing home while she was there in the hospital and recovering, and since she is a nurse at a really great residential home, and at the time where my nana was living, the idea was simple but most importantly practical for everyone involved. I would spend my week there, before going to stay at my sister’s on the weekend. I was having my mom’s co-workers and friends basically take care of me like the rest of the people there. I was even allowed to get my hair cut by the hairdresser there! Honestly, I had a lot of fun spending time with my nana and the other ladies, and of course playing bingo too!

Fast forward to now, the idea of dad having surgery and knowing how indeed stubborn he truly is, made my mom and I make that crucial decision of staying at the nursing home for two weeks. We had made this decision pretty quickly, because we knew if we had it planned out well enough, my parents could essentially forget about me, and focus on dad’s surgery and recovery. We figured it out within a month or maybe less than that, because we discussed it quite a bit beforehand, so it’s difficult to narrow down the timeline.

This time was completely different.

There were things that I expected like my tiny calf muscles screaming at me during the first week because I was rolling around in my wheelchair the entire building, and like my dad, I am also stubborn and rarely asked for help, because I actually liked it. It was when I was pushing my folded bed in breakfast table with some stuff I had I would need for that day, down the massive hall that I was actually allowing myself a break and had someone carry it to my destination, which was always the activity room.

What we didn’t intend on happening was the edge of my knees, all the way down to my ankles and toes would become very swollen. I have never experience this before, it actually freaked us out because my feet felt like balloons and looked like they were going to explode at any moment. After that, I was put on a water pill and gradually it helped with the swelling, but I would still have some issues around the ridge of my feet, especially on my left foot, which makes sense considering I was using that foot to push myself around, but yeah that was a fun little surprise.

I was only supposed to stay there for two weeks, but I kept having the date to go home pushed back… twice.

My nana had moved up north with my aunt and uncle a few months later, so I would be alone this time around, and I’ll be honest I was worried about being on my own, but I was in really good hands too, as the longer I was there, the more I was making friends with the other residents too. This was my first time having a roommate since 2002, and she was a lovely lady and we sat together for meals, and we would go to the different activities. The first I participated in were these weaving pumpkins. They gave us a wired outline of a pumpkin and there were two different types of yarn to us, i went with the skinnier and darker orange whle my roommate went for the Cheeto-like yarn as it was bright orange and very puffy!

Besides doing lots of crafts, they played a lot of games too!

The first full day, not only did I weave a pumpkin, but I played Screamo for the first time ever. What is Screamo you say? Well, like my dad said, it’s like Yahtzee and it is, you have two dices and a sheet with the numbers 1-12 including 12 chips or coins, and the group goes around and rolls the dice and whatever it lands on, like a four and five which adds up to a nine, so you can cover those numbers or eight and one, or just the nine, but it is smarter to get rid of the 1 first as it can be tricky to get it as you cover the others. Once you’ve covered the entire board, you scream it out and win. It is easy to follow and would be really great for kids who have trouble with math, and you could switch it up to subtraction and maybe even multiplication if you feel like getting really creative with it.

Three weeks after I came home, I introduced it to my four-year-old nephew, and he literally kicked my butt in three games. However, I will overlook the loses as he thoroughly enjoyed himself and to me that is even better than winning any game with him. Speaking of which, I will be doing a post about fun games to play during the holidays for Blogmas, so keep an eye out for that coming soon.

I was able to spend my birthday there, it wasn’t planned as I was supposed to come home that weekend, but my gal pals really wanted to throw me a party and I thought it was too sweet to tell them no, so after playing Bingo, we had a party and my mom, sister, Nolan and Kimber came out to help celebrate it. I heard the “happy birthday” song three times and by the second time, where everyone in the dining room sang to me, absolutely terrified me, because I don’t like being the center of attention at all. I felt very loved, which was their intention of course, but again, totally out of my element.

The last day I was there was bittersweet as it was nice. I had a lot of people trying to keep me there, but I needed to go home too. While I was there for four weeks, I had missed my dad (he did come to visit me), Rumer, and the cats. My cat Stormy became fairly sick before I left, he’s been really snotty and his allergies really took hold of him, so while I was gone, I kept getting updates from my parents on him, and I enjoyed the pictures my mom would send me, but my ultimate favorite was this one. He felt good enough to climb up to the back deck, which wasn’t something he could do before I left. My mom was so proud of him she opened the patio door and allowed him to enjoy his lunch on the kitchen rug. He now has a bit of a head tilt, but he seems to be doing better. He has been coming up and meowing to us whenever we call him.

November was chaotic in those first two weeks. I had a really heavy time of the month and then on top of that, I either contracted food poisoning or stomach flu. We think it might’ve been the latter since my mom was also affected by it too, although, she wasn’t too bad, I definitely made up for her that’s for sure! Once I was through with both of them, the month started to perk up a bit. We had to have Thanksgiving two days earlier than usual; my mom tends to work on Thanksgiving, so we try to have it on Black Friday, but we had a conflict with other schedules, so we had it on Wednesday.

While I was in the nursing home, I ended up starting and finishing two books I found there. I read Murder on The Orient Express by Agatha Christie and The Duchess by Danielle Steel (the review will go out on Wednesday!) and I still have my third book which is, The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin. It is about Anne Morrow Lindburgh, who was the wife of Charles Lindburgh, but I actually haven’t been doing any reading lately, which is sad, but I read over 50 books this year so I’m not too mad about it honestly. I’m just not going to enjoy updating my stats on Wednesday because that is going to be a real bitch, but I think once I’m done with all of my blog work for the year, I will be able to get back into it again.

I have one more thing to say, since I wasn’t able to get everything done for my final installment of the “Garden Tour” I will be waiting until January to publish it. I am going into Blogmas content on Friday and will not have time to do anything with it for a while, so I just wanted to give you a heads up on it.

And now, I can finally give you the November playlist. If you would like to hear the rest of the playlist, click here

End Of The End by Blastoyz featuring Reality Test, UNSECRET and Krigare
Rise Up by 2WEI x Edda Hayes
Ghosts by Xandria
Hold Me, Help Me by Halocene
Vivien by Crosses
Wake The World by Epica featuring Phil Lanzon and Tommy Karevik
I Like It by Cardi B featuring Bad Bunny and J Balvin
Shut Down by BLACKPINK
Dark Sun by Ros Stephen x Power-Hus
Believer by Lea Michele
What A Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong
House On A Hill by Kamelot featuring Simone Simons

How was your November? What were you listening to?
snowflake

Becoming An Aunt…. Again!

Published on by gotmeghan1 Comment

Hello there!

I did not think I would ever write that sentence “becoming an aunt” because my sister was adamant about how she wasn’t going to have any more children after the birth of my nephew four years ago. It’s definitely been a long time since those days, and we need to discuss some things before we get too involved into this post.

Sadly, my sister and brother-in-law separated and eventually divorced in 2020, they just grew apart as some couples do and we wish nothing but the best for them. We still love Brandon and see him from time to time, the most recent was when Nolan was playing T-Ball back in mid-May, as he helped coach his team a little bit, I always felt bad for when he was out on the field with Nolan and his little teammate directing their next movements.

My sister had started dating last fall, and we got to meet her boyfriend Zach (who is now her husband!) on Christmas. They didn’t have the kids that day, so it was a bit awkward to see them hanging outside in like 75 degree weather! I say “kids” because Zach also has a four-year-old son, named Isaiah, and he is literally the splitting image of his daddy. It’s still weird that I have also gained a second nephew through this part. I am happy to say Nolan and Isaiah are the best of friends, Nolan considers him his “brother” which he proclaimed one afternoon sitting at the table with us, and we almost started crying because it was so adorable to say something like that!

SURPRISE!

And then, January came around, and everyone was thrown for a loop when my sister announced to us, she was pregnant. Since her pregnancy with Nolan and everything that happened afterwards went a little topsy-turvey, we just assumed she couldn’t get or even wanted to become pregnant again, so this was a surprise for some of us. I wasn’t too shocked by the news honestly, although I didn’t expect it at all! I had respected her thoughts on not adding a sibling for Nolan in the future. Although this is a totally different pregnancy, it hasn’t been an easy one either. She’s been having contractions since late February I think, which is what happened last time. She’s been put on bed rest, monitoring her heart rate, blood sugar, etc. all throughout the ordeal.

BOY OR GIRL?

Towards the start of spring, we were very anxious to learn the sex of the baby. Despite the similarities between each pregnancy, there has been some odd things happen with this one. She has a better appetite in the beginning, but she’s also had a lot of heartburn too. This was sign number one that we could expect a girl, and it didn’t really settle until she began hearing the heartbeat early on and it was very fast, which is another telling point for when mothers are expecting a little girl, so we all called it around 16 weeks it would be a girl and we were right. They will be welcoming a baby girl in the fall.

Now, let’s discuss what her name will be, but first we have to go back to February and March, because at this time we still didn’t know the gender so there were many name combinations passed back and forth between the early months. I think I might save her actual name until she is finally here and do a whole post about the labor, delivery, and bonding with the boys. However, I will tell you the boy names that were in the running though, because I seriously doubt they will ever be used with them; never say never though!

THE NAMING PROCESS

Anyways, they had a fairly large group of names in the beginning.

After the second or third doctor’s appointment, they started to think of certain names, and they had a boy combination from the start and it didn’t really change that much, the first name never really went away, they still enjoyed the full name but thought using part of it as a good nickname. They were very attached to Jaxon Emery, and honestly, I was thoroughly impressed with this. I mean, I’m the namer in the family and yet I wasn’t asked for assistance!

We were kind of surprised that my sister wouldn’t want to use our papaw’s name: David. She explained they weren’t going to honor anyone because both Nolan and Isaiah have their fathers’ middle names. I understood this but yet it was a bit of a bummer to leave him out of this child’s name. Well, obviously, I wasn’t the only one who agreed with me on this and within a few weeks later they switched everything to Jax Morgan. We actually approved of this! The name Morgan was our papaw’s middle and his mother’s maiden name, it was on the list while she was pregnant with Nolan too, but for a little girl instead.

Speaking of girl names, this was another pairing they had picked out in the early days. They had watched the show Euporia when the second season had begun back in late January, and they were thinking of using Rue, but they had only switched it when they decided it was too close to our dog name’s which is Rumer. Later on, they were talking about Remy Mae, and I was not a huge fan of it. I mainly thought of Remy’s popularity in general, and that’s why I enjoyed Nolan so much because it hadn’t exploded in the naming charts, of course it did surge a bit after he was born, but I hardly ever see it now! For a solid four months they were set with it and I just hated it. I was fine with “Mae” as that is one of my sister’s middle names and another name that is huge on both sides of our families too, so it just seemed likely to come up than any other name, and it’s the only one that had stuck throughout this pregnancy and it does fit well with her first, so I can’t wait to see how much she manages it in the future.

NOW WE WAIT…

As I said in the beginning of the post, Blondie has had contractions all throughout this pregnancy, but we are hoping for little miss sweet pea will keep inside the womb a bit longer. Once my sister makes it to around 32-36 weeks, her doctor will just let her go on with the early labor like she did with Nolan. I was also an early bird, but I was born three months in advance. We still don’t know why I wanted to break out so eagerly–hell, even I don’t know the answer to that question! We just hope she will be content, just a tad bit longer..

I do really want to meet this little babe and teach her the same things I taught her big brother, but I know the longer she keeps in the den the stronger she will be out here. Since she will have a pair of brothers going into preschool this year, she’s going to need all of the good fortune around her and mommy too. The boys are very excited to meet her, Nolan has been really curious of her while in Blondie’s belly. He’s already said he won’t change any dirty diapers though! Apparently, Zach will be in charge of that department! It’s going to be interesting to see how they react when she gets her first poopy diaper too…

I think I will wait until she is finally here to give you another update and tell you her name as well once she’s born and we’ve adjusted to the chaos of having a baby around again. Now if you’re on my Instagram, you might get a little treat as I may announce her welcome to the world on there. If you can, please send my sister and the baby some positive thoughts and prayers starting in early September to help ease the labor and delivery process for everyone involved.

Do you have any guesses as to what her name will be? Also, if you know, please don’t ruin the surprise of others commenting on this post.

snowflake

DIY: The Dotted Piggy!

Published on by gotmeghan2 Comments

Hello!

Since discovering dot art back in 2019, I’ve felt like my journey with art in general is on another level. I absolutely love the feeling of creating something new and being at peace with the imperfections that come with it. After I finished with my Christmas projects, I wondered how long I would last until I had the itch again, and if you are wondering, it was only three months.

We have three chances a year to go up north to visit with my family, the first is around my nana’s birthday and I tried looking for little figurines or plush stuffed pigs on Amazon and Wal-Mart, and I just couldn’t find anything that stood out the most and I searched for a fairly long time and became frustrated that there were more things for guinea pig lovers than the pink ones… I don’t remember what pushed me into creating something for her, but once I had the thought, I just went crazy with the number of ideas to do with them.

I found this unfinished wooden cut out of a pig face on Wal-Mart’s website and I just thought the whole thing had enough sass to it that I knew everyone would love too. While I was went looking for the pig, I ended up finding a sea turtle design and thought it could be a great idea to do for my Aunt Laurie and Uncle Mike because they love beach themes, but my aunt really loves turtles too. I worked on the projects at the same time, but I will not be sharing my thoughts on it until the end of June, which is my aunt and uncle’s birthday month.

What you will need:

  • Canvas – you can use whatever you can find, whether it’s wood or ceramic.
  • Acrylic paint – I use DecoArt paints and the colors I used were pink, red, black, and white.
  • Dotting tools – you can purchase a set of tools online, but you could use anything in various sizes like a pencil, Q-Tip, toothpick, etc.
  • Paintbrushes – this is totally an option, as I only used it for the base coat and the tongue, but you can definitely dot these spaces or leave it out entirely.
  • Damp towel or baby wipes to was wash your hands/feet and anything else that has accidently paint on it…

Links:

Unfinished wooden pig (similar) | Dotting tools of various sizes | DecoArt Acrylic Paints: Black, Royal Fuchsia, and White

One of the main reasons I adored this pig was because of the outline around the ears, eyes, mouth and nose. I was worried that once I started doing the first layer of paint, they would disappear but for the most part, they stayed visible for me to do the black dots, but we are getting a heard of ourselves, so let’s rewind a bit.

The canvas itself was the perfect size, as it wasn’t too big or too small, one that even the big bad wolf would probably enjoy. I started off painting on the floor of my room and I went with a very light shade of pink; since I didn’t have the right color in my collection, I had to make it with my neon pink and white acrylic bottles. I put the pink in two slots in my palette and added the white as I heard (and tested it!) this worked better to blend and create the right hue of the paint and it covered the entire thing, but my thought process for the overall design was to add dimension between the cutout and dots. I actually went back and forth on the base coat because I thought it was too much but I’m very glad I decided to do it because it added an extra oomph to the whole thing!

The next day, I finally got started on how I gave her some personality, and again I was so sure how this part was going to turn out at first. I am still learning how to follow a line while making my dots. I made simple small designs for when I did the Christmas tree and Rudolph ornaments but since I only had to follow the slits of its features, I figured it would be easy enough for me, and thankfully it was and to make things even better for me, I used one of my smaller tools, they are really great with details, especially tiny ones and I have realized through doing this project, I am definitely confident creating each section. At first, I was going somewhat outside the lines so that I could still see everything but then as I went on, I managed to cover up most of them with the black paint.

I hadn’t even completed the mouth before I was falling in love with the overall result. The black really set a tone to the plain pink base coat and you could see we were both loving the magic coming to her. I tried to not get so confident that I would be taking risks and messing up the whole project, but I also couldn’t hide my excitement either!

Once I finished the outlines, I left it to dry for about a day. I gave myself time in between each layer so I wasn’t choosing over the comfort of my body and what I wanted else I could do to the pig. I was also in a brand-new position as I wasn’t on the floor anymore, I decided to use my new little table I got for Christmas, and I was really unsure how my body would react and definitely didn’t want to overdo anything either so once I started experiencing some pain in my lower back and eventually my knees, I knew I would need to stop at some point. Whenever this happens, of course I become upset with having to stop in the middle of a project but knowing my body’s limits is a very important. If I continued to push myself, I could possibly make mistakes and would be frustrated with myself about that as well.

When I went back to it, I was conflicted about how much I really wanted to use the dots. I really love the contrast between a regular painted section and a very populated dot area, and I knew it even before I did the ears of how cool that effect would be to the overall design. So, I decided to paint the tongue red. It would be another smaller part so as long as I didn’t go off my original idea. After I completed it, I went forward with doing a dotty inside of the mouth, and I am still not 100% happy with how it turned out, but I think adding the hot pink larger dots on the rest of the pig helped because the color contrast between the lighter pink of the background and a milder shade of the same paint really made it pop. Once I went around the chin with those big dots, I literally couldn’t contain my excitement for how cute she was becoming and I had to show her off quite a bit to my folks but also had to shield her away from my family–especially my nana, because she knows that anything pig worthy goes to her automatically! A part of me wanted to show her but I knew how important it was to reveal it face-to-face, so I kept a very big secret for at least a week and a half, which is impressive to my standards!

When I finally finished with everything, our plan was to glue or tape down a cute pink bow around its hairs, it had three little semi-sharp “hairs” poking out on the top of its head and decided to include some dots on them, in case we didn’t have time to put it on her, but in the end, it turned out we didn’t have a way of making sure it stuck there forever so I’m very glad I put dots around that section anyways!

As of right now, they haven’t found a way to put it up in my nana’s room. She has a big room, but she has a lot of decor, photos, and posters all over her walls, so finding the right placement for it is going to be a little bit tricky. While we were up there, I was even trying to find a spot for it and I had a difficult time with it, so good luck Mike!

I hope you enjoyed this “little” how to do post. The second post will be going out in June, so we have some time to find more projects in the meantime!

snowflake