Family Craft Time

It is always a fun time when family gets together and what better way to bring us together for a fun time than by doing a fun craft.

My son, Ryan's, girlfriend asked for help painting this adorable project of pumpkins (and you all know how much I love pumpkins). We first chose what colors we wanted to use and discussed how we wanted to paint them. We knew that we didn't want them to be exactly the same, but we both have similar taste in colors, so we just took it from there. We made sure that we had a cup of warm water for our paint brushes (we don't want them to get too dry) and laid out the puppy pads to help with any paint dripping.

My other son, Tyler, surprised us with some new drink that he brought home from work, so we got to try a little cocktail amongst us as well. The boys sat nearby and Ryan even participated with his own project. (See the ending for his contribution.)

And then painting got underway! We started with staining the frame and the background and then set out with one coat of paint on each pumpkin so that we knew what the general lay out would be and then took it from there. We had so much fun! Laughing and joking around with each other.

I typically don't do a lot of projects that have a set pattern to them already, but I decided I'd give this one a shot to see how it went. By this point, it was so far so good.

After blending colors to get the pumpkins to look just right, we added some special touches to them by accentuating the lines that were already inlaid on the pumpkins with a stain. I smudged mine and Mercedes watered hers down. Each technique was equally beautiful. Then we wanted to embellish them a bit, so I grabbed some of these 'Happy Fall' words to add. I left mine natural and she decided to stain hers and then dry brush Plaster (by Waverly) over it. We added a raffia bow at the corners that had a button in the middle, and then I had some small wooden leaves we painted with diluted paint so that it gave the appearance of Fall leaves. They turned out absolutely adorable!

Mercedes thought that she wasn't that crafty and she proved herself wrong. She was patient with herself and had a lot of fun creating something that she was able to take home and display in their home.

Crafting for me and so many others is a way to destress, cope, get through a tough time or simply to have fun. Whether it is a perfect project or not is beside the point. What matters is that you were able to take a simple idea in your head and create something amazing with it. Believe in yourself, believe in your capabilities! You can achieve whatever you set out to do.

As mentioned above, here is the project that Ryan painted while we worked on the pumpkins. Mercedes has a bit of talent with drawing and after Ryan stained this, she drew the outline of this longhorn skull with a pencil. My boys have always showed some talent with drawing when they were young so it didn't surprise me that this came out so good!