somewhat slacking

i feel like a slug lately, not doing anything productive since easter sunday, where we only got 1/3 of the porch ceiling up. to be fair, we only had 3 hours of work time, given that dinner at mom's was to be served promptly at 4pm. and there were showers to be had and desserts to be assembled. yes, we were late.

softball is in full swing with games mondays, wednesdays and fridays and i've traveled a good part of connecticut's shoreline to get to 'em. which leaves me slacking in the creativity department, mostly. with the mister having to work today, the porch got put off another day but i didn't mind because i've been itching to use the water slide decals that finally came. i picked up a great white shark cookie jar at a local thrift shop whose sales benefit the disabled. $4! and it's huge! and pretty.

and prettier now, i believe, yeah?

and since that took a whopping six minutes to complete, i was up and out of the house by 11am, which is like sunrise in mcvick speak. i hit up six tag sales, two thrift shops, goodwill and joan's, coming home only with clearance acrylic paint from joan's. oh and this simple set of three wooden trays that i've already sanded and painted with one coat of paint.

the wheels are turning and i'm contemplating mother's day gifts with these. a blackboard cheese tray for my mother in law, a graphics fairy simple black silhouette on white for my mom and i'm keeping one for me! i'm thinking some utensils from graphic's fairy

and just to prove to myself that i could, i made a sign with some leftover wood from the bedroom ceiling project.

i applied a thinned coat of raw umber acrylic paint to pre-primed scrap of 1x6, let that dry, brushed on a nice healthy coat of elmer's glue, let that dry just a bit but still tacky and painted on some linen white that i made with old clay beige and untinted white satin paint. this is the same color mix i used for the french graphic on burlap tray here . sign painting is so much easier now that i've found sharpie paint markers. i just print out my graphic, rub the back the paper with artist charcoal and trace over the outlines onto the surface i want to paint. and because i drink wayyyy to much coffee and diet coke, the sharpie marker is a godsend. just outline the letters, paint the inside and it looks pretty sweet.

so i suppose i wasn't at all unproductive today. the mess in the house proves it. err... linking up at: