Surprise!!

We had a great Christmas with both our families this year. I'll try to get some pictures up soon of all the festivities, but today's post is all about the gifts I made this year.

At the beginning of the month I hinted at a gift I was working on. I had taken this picture of playing cards as a teaser of posts to come.

Any guesses yet on what it was?


Well here it is...
This year I did the unthinkable, and painted 4 creations! One each for both of our moms, and my two sisters!! I had only ever painted once before, and that was on canvas, these were all on wood (I like the wood SO much better). So if you're very critical, you probably shouldn't look at them ('cause they're not "Professional").

Anyway, today's post is all about my Mom's painting. All of my paintings started out the same way...as a pile of scrap wood! My Dad helped me build up the frame on each of them! After enduring freezing weather in my parent's shop, scary power tools, and a bruised thumb (from hitting it too many times with a hammer)...these are what I had to show for myself!


I'll try to sum up everything I did in as few words as possible. I knew I wanted Mom's painting to have a lot of texture, so I picked out rough plywood for her painting. Then I added a layer of wall spackling.

Here's what that looked like:

Since my Mom's painting was going to go down stairs in her game room, I knew I wanted to incorporate cards somehow. So I laid out a pattern that I liked.

Before I could adhere all the cards I needed to seal the wood. You can use high-end wood sealer (made specifically for paintings), but I had read quite a few tutorials that said regular old Kilz worked fine...and since I already had some, that's what I used! After the paint dried, I mod-podged all the cards in place (making sure to seal them all on both sides).

Then came the fun part! Here's the first go round:

I printed off lettering from my computer, and stenciled it onto the painting before filling it in with black paint. By far the most tedious part!

Then I added the heart to the center, painted the sides, and roughened up all the edges with more paint. All finished!

Here was Mom on Christmas after she opened it!

I'll try to post pictures of the other three paintings in the next couple days (along with all the other Christmas pictures!).