Art in the Family

Spring Meese-Goodhart
Designer for Simply Spring Designs
http://www.simplyspring.com


Art in the Family
I have so many childhood memories of watching my mom paint. I vividly remember her standing with her head cocked to the side, scrutinizing her work-scratching her head with the paintbrush handle, then she'd lean in with the paint brush, dab..dab...dab and stand back and do the same thing, over and over until it was a finished piece. Art was always present in our home.

When I think about my childhood, I really realize how much of what I was exposed to as a child affected me - help mold me into who I am. And not just me - my siblings! Our mother single-handedly raised six children and for the most part supported us with her creativity. She was an amazing entrepreneur!

This is what astounds me: because of what we were exposed to, ALL of her children grew up to be artists in one form or another. Singers. Muralists. Writers. Painters. Designers. ALL of her children are entrepreneurs! Armed with that knowledge, I involve my kids in what I'm doing. They spend time creating and learning from their grandma. I encourage them to express themselves creatively. They just very well be the next Rock Star, the next Picasso, the next Tom Clancy!

Encourage a child to be creative, share with them the wonder of it! You're not just enriching their life, you're enriching our future and the world!

Ooooh....I can do THAT with stencils?!?!

Spring Meese-Goodhart

Designer for Simply Spring Designs

http://www.simplyspring.com/

I love "playing" with stencils. I love designing them, using them, and sharing their uses with anyone who will listen to me drone on and on about them!

Recently, a great friend of mine gave me a huge box full of cigar boxes. I didn't know exactly what to do with them, but I knew I didn't want to pass them up! There were sooo many different shapes and sizes! Who knew?! I opened each one up and embraced their different aromas. Mmmmm! I just fell in love with them! Now...what to do with them?!

A gift idea!

I decided I wanted to make a guitar box for my husband, you know....a place to house the picks, tuner, strings, etc. that seem to be all over my house!

I picked out my box, removed the label from the top and chose the stencil design I wanted to use. I went with our new design "Dervil Border" (only available to our newsletter customers now, coming soon to the website: http://www.simplyspring.com/ ) This design is a two overlay design. (if you don't know, that means it takes two stencils to complete the design) I sprayed stencil adhesive to the back of the stencil, placed it on top of the box and grabbed my putty knife and the joint compound! My favorite part!

The only negative to two overlay stencils? Waiting for the first layer of joint compound to dry!! I don't know why I wasn't born more patient...it's my flaw, I can't help it. But luckily, I used the joint compound that is pink when wet and white when dry, so there's no guessing!

And now you see the proof of my impatience! The 1st layer is still pink, see? I didn't wait. Luckily, I waited long enough!

Once the design was completely dry (I promise this time!) I painted the box midnight blue with acrylic paint and waited for it dry (I did!!) before using silver metalic paint and dry brushed it lightly over the raised design. Don't use too much pressure or you lose the depth and contrast! You'll have too much silver on there!

Ahhhh! Beautiful, non?

I finished the top of the box with wipe on poly to protect the finish and waited for it to dry (okay, mostly dry) before presenting it to my husband. Now he loves me even more (right, honey?) because I gave him this elaborate yet masculine box for his guitar junk....er...stuff that no longer lives all over my house! Everyone is happy and our marriage is saved! (hmmm....maybe I should get into marriage counseling, whaddya think?) LOL Have fun!!