Quarantine Hobby #1: Watercolor

It's March 2020. I've just heard the news that everything is going to be shut down for "two weeks to slow the spread". (HAH.) On my weekly grocery trip, I decide to cruise the craft aisles at Meijer for anything to help keep the kids occupied - and maybe myself. Stickers? Yes. Crayola ColorWonder books? Throw 'em in the cart. Clearance watercolor kits? I've never tried that before, sure sounds good.

After watching a few YouTube tutorials of how to get started, these were some of my first "pieces". (That's too fine a word for what I do!)

Turns out the paper and brushes you use have a bigger impact on your final outcome than your paints do, so after realizing I like painting with watercolors (and that the paper and brushes that came with the paints were crap), I invested $15 in a good brush, and bought some slightly better watercolor paper at Hobby Lobby.

Here's my next set. I decided to make bookmarks because it's a small, unintimidating canvas. (Plus I got to use my laminator! So fun!)

When shopping for watercolor paper, I had picked up a 4x6 pad of the same paper, so I tried making notecards.

Turns out, I really like this! (And they make great gifts.) (Although I now prefer to work on 12x12 paper and cut it down to size - I can get 6 cards and 2 bookmarks from a page that size and it's more cost-effective.)

I even got conscripted to make some bookmarks for my cousin's wedding favors!

Mostly, I just have fun browsing Pinterest for fun ideas and then trying them out. I've recently discovered using skinny washi tape as a resist method. (So many fun ideas with that!)

I really enjoy painting with watercolors. I will most likely never be up to painting anything realistic looking, and I don't even know that I want to, but it's very relaxing to just play with the paint!

Love and Washi Tape,

Leah Joy

Christmas 2020 - yep

Okay, we all already know I was quite far behind in this blog, so enough ado already about how late this post is.

For Christmas 2020, Jo and I made little bells for our en masse ornament. (See previous years posts here: 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2013 2012 2011)

We used small wooden dollhouse flower pots from Hobby Lobby that we painted in all different patterns. After they dried, we strung a jingle bell on the inside and tied a cute bow around the hanging ribbon.

 

Jo was super into The Princess in Black in 2020, so I painted this ball ornament to be like Princess Magnolia on one side and The Princess in Black on the other side. My sister made the tiara - and it rotates with the ball ornament.

For Micah, I picked up a package of tiny bottle brush trees from the dollar store, along with a construction vehicle also from the dollar store. A little bit of hot glue, some Epsom salts and glitter later, and we have this snowy ornament:

Love and Lights,

Leah Joy

A Few Birthday Cakes

Here are a few of my favorite cakes I've made over the last year and a half. The first is Jo's 5th birthday cake. Her birthday is always around Thanksgiving, so it's tricky to throw her a birthday party. For her 5th birthday, we tacked her celebration onto Thanksgiving, so she got two "birthday parties", one with each side of the family. I used my 6" cake pans (that I purchased for Pete and Chloe's wedding cake) and made two small 2-layer cakes.

My family always gets my decorating experiments. I kind of like this one!

Micah's 3rd birthday cake was a construction cake, because this boy loves all things "twucks".

This was a very different style for me to try, but I had fun with it!

Photo credit to my friend Jenny

In 2021, my sister had her golden birthday - she turned 23 on the 23rd! I made her a golden chocolate cake!

I tried my first ever drip cake, which was a bit less successful than I was hoping for. To get a nice gold drip, you can either drip white chocolate ganache and then paint it (which sounded like waaaaay too much work) or make a gold drip out of luster dust and vodka (the alcohol evaporates off). I chose the luster dust/vodka method, but my mixture was too liquidy, so it dripped much faster than expected.

I made the number cake toppers out of a gold glitter foam sheet from Hobby Lobby and some toothpicks.

I used lots of gluten-free chocolate candies, some of which I cut and/or painted with more luster dust. I purchased several kinds of gold sprinkles as well, and made chocolate bark with gold accents to decorate the back of the cake. (Unfortunately, I either used too much chocolate bark, or gluten-free cake isn't as sturdy as regular cake - or both? - and the cake started to fall apart on the party day. Thankfully, broken cake still tastes good!)

Love and Sprinkles,

Leah Joy