Crafty Neighbors... Crafty I tell you.

So when you see me come home from the craft store with blank stretched canvas, that means I'm about to hand my kids some water based washable paint and a bunch of brushes. I've been doing that since the beginning of time with them. For years, I refused to buy coloring books. They got blank canvas or blank paper. Now, they prefer that. The 5 and 6 year old have figured out just recently what to do with a coloring book, but they are fabulous artists who'd prefer to draw a picture. They express their emotions in their art (healthy), and they are developing their talent (we all are uniquely talented). Blah blah blah blah I'm fucking awesome. Haha. Only thing is, I have a lot of canvases that are painted a red brown. It looks like abstract art. Just about all of them look like this. One had a tree in the middle, and then they painted over it. Some of them end up more of a brown or green. On a plus note, my kids are now starting to paint rainbows and hearts.

This doesn't exactly match everyone's decor, and kids love it when you hang their art work up on the walls.

So, I saw my neighbor today with stretched canvases coming home from the craft store. She has no idea I'm blogging about her, so I must talk about her behind her back for a second. She's OCD, and an opposite of it than I am. I freak out about stuff you can't see. She freaks out about stuff you can see. Her house is always spotless, beautifully decorated, and it smells fabulous, which is remarkable considering she has a 5 and 6 year old. I get a Donna Reed boner every time I go down there. She's the reason why I do those wax warmers now.

With that said, the pictures my kids paint would probably drive her nuts on her walls. Too much chaos. Too abstract. Her living room is decorated in Steelers (Go STEELERS), black and white extra thick canvas photos of her family, and warming inspirational quotes. She's a candle fanatic too, preferring Yankee candles for the scent, but decorating with all sorts of candles she will light with the Yankee candles and the wax burners. Her favorite color scheme for decorating is simply black and white.

So here are her wall friendly crafts she did with her kids, and I know they are on her walls because I could hear her hammering in the nails (or it was my kids just playing in my closet).

First the Tree of Life...

Each hand print on the tree is one hand from each member of her family. How freaking cute is that? And it's definitely worthy of hanging on your living room wall without looking like Hobby Lobby threw up on it.

Then her oldest child did this one...

Cut out a heart on paper (or any shape you want), and tape it on the canvas. Spray paint the canvas black (or any color, or leave it white) and let it dry. Glue the crayons on the canvas. Let it dry. Tilt the canvas and use your blow drier to melt the crayons..they will start to splash everywhere in the canvas. When that cools and hardens, remove the paper and let the child paint the heart. The butterfly, she hot glued it after.

For this one, her younger daughter, she cut out the letters L and E with paper and taped it to the canvas. Then she spray painted the canvas black (you can use any color combo here). After it dried, she removed the paper and painted her daughter's hands first and put it on the canvas then the feet..then they colored the L n the E.

She says you can do a lot too with broken crayons and the blow dryer. Google and Pinterest are both full of ideas. Probably where she got these.