At-Home Painting With A Twist Date Night

I mentioned in my last post that my husband and I had a "Painting With A Twist" inspired date night recently. I went to a Painting With A Twist a few years ago and really enjoyed it, but I didn't like the painting we did. (I went with a group of friends and just went along with the painting they chose.)

We pass our local Painting With A Twist often when we walk downtown, and, while the paintings are cute, I've never thought one was cute enough to hang in my house. PLUS I'd want to do it with my husband which means we'd have not one, but TWO paintings that we'd wonder what to do with. So, cheapskate me could never justify a date night there. But then I thought, why don't we just do one at home?

So I went to my fave store, Hobby Lobby (when you collect hobbies, you frequently find yourself here), and picked up supplies. All the painting supplies were half off, and, honestly, that's the only time you should ever buy anything at Hobby Lobby. Everything goes on sale every few weeks. I picked up:

• a set of 20 (I think) acrylic paints
• pack of paintbrushes
• plastic mixer things (didn't really need them, but I read a blog post that inspired me to get them, and they were only a few dollars)
• watercolor paper (instead of canvas. Plus, I was out of watercolor paper, so it did double duty. Yes, I do some watercolor too. *points at self* Hobby Collector.)

My total bill was around $30, but I also picked up some other things, so probably the paint stuff we needed was around $20. Which, I might add, is about half the price for ONE person to do Painting With A Twist. AND I have enough supplies that we can do it again. Or I can do it again. I was wanting to take up acrylics anyway, so this was a really good reason for me to get supplies. 

After acquiring my supplies, I found a beginner acrylics tutorial on YouTube for us to follow. We didn't have the exact same brushes, but used similar ones and it worked out just fine.

And then... we painted! And had fun! And made a mess! (Okay, I made a mess. I'm a messy painter.) And we made some really cute paintings that I need to hang up in the kitchen.

Life Currently | June 2020

It feels like it's been sooooo long since I've been on here and I've been itching to write. Life looks a whole lot different than it did three months ago. Some bad. Some good. Here's a few things going on in my life right now!

• I've taken up macrame. I joke that I collect hobbies... but it's hardly a joke. I've been making macrame plant hangers and it's a game changer because now I have a way to keep the plants away from the cats! Also I need more plants.

• I also bought a set of acrylics because I wanted to give it a try. Casey and I used this tutorial for a "Painting With a Twist" inspired at-home date and created these!

• We turned a corner of my craft room/library into an at-home office. Casey MADE me two tables and I painted and stained them. They're so cute! I just finished up a virtual conference my work hosted this week (like literally... 20 minutes ago) and it's so nice to not be working at the dining room table anymore. (FYI, I've been working from home for a year now... so it's nothing new... but I recently realized I need an actual work space.)
• House projects. Alongside the tables for my office, we used leftover wood to hang up a shelf, mounted the TV to the wall (it was previously sitting on a cheap shoe rack... now the living room looks so nice and homey and less like a dorm room), and are redoing a chair we found on the side of the road. I feel like we've done a lot of other things too, but some of it was just moving furniture around.

• OH! I painted three doors PINK. I'm thinking the kitchen door is next. Casey bought me a gallon of the pink paint so now I have to find more things to paint. Which is why I have like 5 pink plant pots. And the legs of my tables are pink. What else can I paint pink??

• Speaking of plants, I've acquired quite a few recently. I love them. And I need more, obviously.
• I've read like 6 books in the last two or three weeks. Sometimes I go through periods where I just read ALL THE BOOKS and then none of the books. I'm about halfway through my most recent read (a cheesy YA romance -- MY FAVE) and need to go finish it. It's a rainy day, so I'm gonna put on some PJs soon and read away.
• Accidentally figured out how to make my nails grow. I started a new skincare routine (I need to make an updated skin care post, but here's my old one) and part of it involves organic almond oil and pure frankincense (why is that such a hard word to spell) essential oil. Turns out my nails love it. I'll have to write a post about it. (I'm also quite upset that I broke a nail about 30 minutes ago when I was closing the window because rain.)
• I'm craving a strawberry limeade. Which is weird, because I don't exactly like lime. But I had a sip of my husband's strawberry limeade from our fave coffee + crepe shop in downtown and now... I need one. I'm hoping it will be nice and sunny on Saturday so we can walk downtown and get one!

Okay, well now I've updated this little bloggy. Who knows when I'll update it again? What can I say? It's just one of those hobbies I've collected.