New Artwork and ETSY Shop Updates

Hello lovelies!
I haven't done too many DIY projects to share lately cause I've been running around like a crazy lady. I had some issues with our septic tank, a week of fabulous family time, then a week of nasty weather that is just never super inspiring. But one thing I've done a lot of work on this year is my ETSY shop. I did some rearranging, added new sections, and have made some fabulous goals that I can't wait to reach :) I thought I would just do a quick update on the shop to share some of the recently added pretties!



My favorite update has been adding a Painting section. I have always done commissions and larger pieces for friends but was never very confident about adding one of a kind pieces on ETSY. I think all of my work is unique and I hand paint each piece so everything is super personal but doing something that I am not going to attempt to reproduce is really fun. These are mostly pieces that speak to me personally and if I lived in a house with more wall space they would be hanging everywhere :) This Painting section has allowed me to be more creative than the quick gift pieces I've been focusing on for so long. It has been super inspiring and very fun, so hopefully this section will continue to grow!!

I also did some updates to my Watercolor section. I LOVE watercolor and I always have. So by adding some one of a kind pieces I am able to get back in to the medium that really started me on my life as an artist. While my acrylic work is super fun I find watercolor to be so therapeutic. It is a super fluid paint and is so whimsical that its almost impossible not to relax while working with it. 

I did a lot of updates to my Tin Sign section. It is still my largest shop section and where all of my best sellers come from but I decided to build a photo back drop so hopefully the section will be a bit more orderly :) I am still working on this but as you can tell lots of tins have already been re-photographed. 

Of course I still have the Serving Tray section, which is the second best selling section :) It's a favorite because I get to do a little bit a building and painting :) These are often what people buy as gifts for weddings, anniversary, and this past christmas I had an order for TWENTY SEVEN!! Yeah it was crazy awesome!

 And finally what I think is my most unique section, Clocks. Most of my clocks are made from rustic tin and hand painted with all different designs. The tin is so stunning and just perfect the way it is but most clients tend to add a personal touch to match their home decor.

As you can tell the shop is going under some changes and I am loving the way they are going. I can't believe how people have supported me with all of my work. Having a small business is hectic and crazy and not really something I thought I would be doing at 24. But God is blessing me and in just 1 year my sales TRIPLED! I am trusting in God and that He is gently guiding me the way I am supposed to go and I think that direction is towards my passions. I hope this little business will keep growing and that these passions will never burn out :)

I would LOVE to hear what y'all think of the shop so please be sure to visit GraceLangdon on ETSY!!

ETSY Shop Update and Month Long SALE!

The holidays are approaching quickly! I've started Christmas way earlier than I ever have in the past, I love Thanksgiving so I don't like "skipping it" to start decorating for Christmas. But this is the first year that Reed and I will be "home" for the Holidays! I've also been asked to participate in some bloggy Christmas events so I'm kinda excited :)



So in honor of getting ready for Christmas but not skipping over Thanksgiving and the importance of acknowledging our blessings I'm having a thankful sale on my ETSY shop!!

From now until the 28th I will be offering free shipping across the shop, and I will be having a 40% off sale in honor of Black Friday. I've never been someone to wake up early and hit the stores so my Black Friday event will last from Midnight until Noon! So put it on your calendars and get over to the shop to get your custom gifts and goodies!! 

Here are a few goodies I have in the shop that have proven to be pretty popular :) 

Want a puppy portrait to add to your family room, office, or mudroom?? Well This 8x10 portrait is only $25 and is the perfect size to make a statement about your loved one without giving off a "crazy dog" owner look. Even though lets be honest, we all are crazy dog owners at heart right :) 

I have various other size pet portraits ranging from $25- $40 so be sure to check them all out! 

This customized tray has been SUPER popular lately! This $30 solid pine tray is a great gift to give for a wedding present, anniversary, or just because. I've done a few different designs for this changing around the wording, and even replacing the place with a bundle of grapes. If any of you have custom designs floating around just let me know and we can work together on achieving it!! 

This is one of my favorites :) These scarves are hand painted with a floral design and beautiful vibrant colors. Along with this one I have done loads of other designs varying from College teams to monograms! If you don't see your team or monogram listed message me and we can get it done asap! And even have a few in a little boutique!! Woot woot!! 

GIVEAWAY HAS ENDED! 

And don't forget about the Giveaway I have going on with Rachel over at Like A Saturday! You have just a few days left so be sure to enter enter enter!  

Bed Side Tables

It has been almost 5 months in the house and our bedroom has yet to be pictured. 

I painted it the first week we moved in. Hung curtains, placed furniture and everything within the first 2 weeks. But everything we had in there just looked like it was so random! 

Today I decided that I would fix that! 

Our house is pretty low budget. So instead of purchasing new side tables or even buying  materials to build side tables I just refinished the ones we had already.  

Here are the "before" pictures. 

First thing I did was mix up the paint color I wanted to use to tie both tables together. I couldn't handle the mix match wood and bright orange tables!
A few days ago I posted about some home made chalk paint, check it out here. I used the same can of paint with the left over DIY chalk paint and just added some black until I got the desired gray.

For the wooden side table with the drawer I sanded it just a little and painted two coats of my homemade gray chalk paint.

But the orange side table took a little more. 

First it was originally to low. Fortunately I had 2 of the tables one in our bedroom and the other in the guest room. So I stacked them! Obviously, that made it too tall. So I took the tables apart and headed outside to the "studio". 

I measured the legs and made sure to cut each one evenly. Sanded each piece of BOTH tables a little bit. And painted painted painted away :) 

Now both Reed and I have a side table with our own lamp and place for books and other things :)
I'm so happy with the way they turned out and how well the gray went with the wall color! I didn't try to get the same gray but dang I sure got close!

Now our room is mostly done. Still need to put some finishing touches on things so I can't do a tour just yet, but it is in the near future!

PS. That lamp isn't finished yet, I made it today while I was working on the tables and I love it. Which means I've got to find a special lamp shade and add some "spark" to it :) Be looking for a post about the lamp base and the shade soon! 

Painting with out BLACK

A few weeks ago I shared how to use the  language of color (if you missed it check it out here) I talked about all kinds of terms and how the color wheel is set up. Now I didn't get a chance to go to deep in to color theory and I don't really think I'm qualified to go much deeper. BUT I did think I should share how all of those terms can be used in an actual painting. 

So today I decided to do a little pet portrait of a precious pup and show you how the knowledge of color can help create a really unique painting. 

Quickly I'll just share with you how I started. You can see that the board I was using had a painting on it before. So I just used some gesso (basically primer) to cover it up and start a quick drawing. I am so not good at sketching so I usually just do a real generic sketch (this one was based off of a photo) and then fill in the details with the paint. 

I then started with my high lights. Based from the image I took the lightest parts of the fur, where the light was reflecting, and chose my light colors. I didn't want to do a super realistic painting so I decided to go with yellow and a bright orange. And I left them straight out of the tube, no mixing. 

This puppy is a dark black with khaki/cream spots on his face, ears and paws. But like I said earlier, to avoid a flat and realistic style painting I decided not use black or white at all. I decided to use nothing but color to create this painting. So by using the knowledge that contrasting colors often create a muddy brown/black when mixed I started at it.  You can tell that there are lots of blues purples yellows and pinks. What you probably can't pick out are the greens. Green and red are one of the best combinations for getting a dark color with out using black. So the dark spots are mostly a forest green mixed with a red. You can see how different areas are shaded with different colors I used that to create the volume of the body and show how the light can cause different temperatures of color just by how it hits the object. 

Painting with out black and white is hard. But often creates a much better painting. By using other colors to create your darks you are actually painting much more realistically than if you only use black as your darkening agent. Just look at an object and really study it. You can see that the shadows are different shades or tones of a color like red, green blue, ect. It takes a minute to notice but once you see it its like light goes off and you will never see white as just white or black as just black again! 

I enjoyed this fun little painting. I wish I had paid more attention to my photography so I could have actually shared the process with you instead of just talking. But I just got caught up in my TV show and painting. Too many things I love happening at once for me to stop and photograph the process :) Sorry 

So this wasn't nearly as informative as the earlier post about color (here) but I hope it helps you get creative with the next little craft or painting you decide to make. Seeing that you can get real lights and real darks with out using black and white will make any project more interesting and dynamic!! 

*I have started some advertising with Passion Fruit Ads and need some lovely blogs to grace my side bar :) Please check out my advertising page and let me know if you are interested!! HERE

Drop Cloth Chair

Alright, I've had this project in the works for about a month. I don't know why its taken me so long but it did. Actually it didn't take long it just took me a while to photograph it as a "finished" product :)

So here it is and all its glory!

Alright, this chair has come a LONG way. The first week we moved my mom, aunt, and friend came up to visit and help me with whatever I needed help with. Originally it was painting, but in our family we never do what we say we are going to do. We decided to go thrifting instead!  

These are our fabulous finds!! The ladder from the Ladder Light ,  gas can that will be made in to a side table, the medicine cabinet for the bathroom, and the broken chair that I have made unrecognizable!

(The thrift shops up here are the best I've ever seen! I got all of this and a few other things that my mom, aunt, and friend picked up ALL for $20!!)

So here is the chair. It was sturdy just a little worn and missing an arm. My aunt is the one who made me get it because she has a matching one, also missing an arm :)

I knew it wouldn't take much to make it look like new so I chopped off the arm. And sanded them down to a matching hight that wouldn't poke you in the legs when you sit. 

Once I cleaned it up some I decided the cheapest way for me to cover it would be a drop cloth. So I got a 9x12 ft drop cloth from Lowes for about $10 bucks and started at it! I wasn't so sure how to do it at first so I played around with what the best place to make my first cut would be. I ended up landing on draping the corner of the fabric over to cover the back. And then I went to town with some stables!

Yes I recovered this chair with a drop cloth and staples... It works!

Then to cover the corner and make sure it looked pretty I used the gift wrapping technique. Just pulled to the side and made a tight corner then pulled it down nice and tight to staple. It took a little fidgeting to get the top fold to look nice so you have to play with it a little. Then to finish the side I folded the remaining edge of the cloth over and used no sew tape to avoid the staples! 

I was so proud of that side of the chair. It was a huge boost in convidence to wing it and have it looks so nice and smooth :)  But this next part got a little tricky to photograph so I will do my best to explain. I flipped the remaining amount of cloth over the top of the chair so I would pull it tight around the bottom of the back to staple. 

After flipping the chair back to the upright position I cut the fabric along the base of the back leaving just enough fabric to pull tight and staple. I pulled the fabric from the back to the front of the chair stapling underneath the back and then pulled the remaining fabric to cover with a finished edge using no sew tape.

And then again used a similar technique as wrapping presents to finish off the side of the chair. Unlike the other side it didn't have the finished seam of the drop cloth so to make sure the sides matched I cut a piece of the seam off of the left over cloth and then again used no sew tape to attach and finish it off. 

 

And for the bottom I just cut a square of the drop cloth slightly bigger than the seat and notching out where the legs would be. 

Then I flipped the chair so I could see the underside and pulled the fabric tight and stapling. I rotated around making sure that no one side had more staples in it than another all while checking the top to make sure it is pulled tight with no bubbles or ripples. I think that rotating while you staple helps keep the fabric taught and even across the surface, but i'm sure you could do that other ways too.  The corners got a little tricky so that was pretty much just pull and staple as much as it needed. 

But to make them look more finished I rolled the corners of the fabric under, stapling tight, and the hot gluing in place so that it wouldn't move around and show the fabric underneath. 

Here is the finished chair! Well the covering part at least. It honestly didn't take too long at all and it wasn't hard either!. I'm really happy with how the drop cloth looks and think leaving it like this would have worked just as fabulous as what I ended up doing to it. 

But being bored coupled with just moving I couldn't leave the chair alone. I wanted to have some other creative project other than painting the house so I decided to paint the chair :) I love flowers I think they are beautiful so I picked some of my favorites and did my own rendition of them on the seat and back. 

And then I STILL couldn't leave well enough alone! I had the chair sititng in the living room for atleast 3 weeks and decided it was just too "pretty" for me. As much as I love floral I don't really have traditional floral in my house anywhere. I have lots of floral inspired patterns int he living room but they all have a twist to them. So I decided to add my twist to the chair once more :) 

I went and got the sample Valspar paint from Lowes and picked out the brightest green I could find. 

Celery. 

I love it! I think it added just the right amount of flare to this chair. totally more me. Sadly I don't really need it in the living-room. It fits fine for now but I don't think I'm going to be its forever home. 

It was a fun project and I can't believe how far it came from that broken chair at the thrift store.