Mo & Eva

They've been sleeping closer together now that it's gotten a bit colder around here. They are so cute when they snuggle.

Mural

After six months of daydreaming, planning, reading about murals, I finally finished it! I'm so pleased with how it turned out. I based my design heavily on Cathy J. Mayer's Tuscany pattern, which was an oil painting, and then also used instruction and acrylic color choices from Debby Forshey-Choma's Tuscany vineyard bowl, and Kathy Swigon's Tuscan clipboard patterns. This was a major thing for me to scale up a pattern, modify to fit my approximately 20" x 55" surface, and to figure out colors and instructions. I'm very much a follow the pattern and instruction kind of girl.

I'm pretty pleased with the results, and I think it really spruced up the entryway. It's nice to finally enhance that niche and really make it a focal point when you walk in. Tony did a great job cutting the plywood for both the shutters and the mural. No easy task to get that curve! And he had a lot of fun using his nail gun to get everything in place.

Entryway

We got the shutters hung on the entryway niche today. The mural should be done later this week. I can't get over what a transformation just the shutters make. I can hardly wait to see the change with the mural!

Snowman ornament

I whipped up this cute little snowman ornament for Tony's gift exchange for work.

Christmas

We got the outside of the house pretty well decorated. The snowmen I painted turned out quite well, and the lights look lovely. The cats are very happy to have the Christmas tree up. They love sitting under and looking at the lights. Eva likes to dive under the tree skirt. Not sure if she's looking for presents or a mouse!

Eva Sleeping

We bought this floor pillow a couple of months ago, and now the cats, and sometimes Tony, fight over who gets to use it. Eva won last night, and looked so cute all curled up asleep.

Domino pin

We also made cute little domino pins at the Ginger Edwards painting seminar. I had some trouble getting a good picture, and it's still not great. Ginger sands and sprays the domino with sealer, then stamps an image with a Staz On pad. To paint it she uses glass and tile medium to thin out the paints. It was cute, and a lot easier than the ones I've done with just ink pads.