Monday Is A Milestone

Happy Thursday, All!!  I hope your week is going well and that you are safe and dry.  We've had CRAZY rain and thunderstorms and tornadoes in our area.  DAILY. 

This coming Monday is a milestone of sorts.  Mr. Inspiring turns 4-0!!  I was planning on a birthday party for him at my mom's with my family this weekend (on the surprise side of parties) and he up and decided he wanted to go camping for his birthday weekend!  Fine with me!! 

We camp at Cloud 9 Ranch about 4 hours from here.  You have to be a member.  There are 5 or 6 campgrounds, 6500 acres, 4-wheeler/ATV trails out the wazzou, laundry facilities, miniature golf, a couple of pools, horses and trails, a car wash, a small grocery store, a little cafe, and a spring-fed (river) stream that runs through it.  It is a magical place, if you're into camping and 4-wheeling and fishing.

 My daddy was the president of the Board of Directors for a few years before he passed away.  He LOVED Cloud 9.  And the other members  he worked with on the BOD loved him, too.  In fact, they named the main road after him.  When I go there, I feel closer to Daddy.  He passed in January of 2007, and I miss him so much.

I digressed............ so sorry - - back to my post!!

I wanted to do SOMETHING for Mr. Inspiring to commemorate his big birthday.  He's the kind of person that really doesn't like for someone to fuss over him, or so he SAYS!!  I've been wanting to try painting on glass, so I figured I'd make one for him.  (Disclaimer) This is my VERY FIRST attempt at this, and I'm not sure it turned out the way I had imagined in my head.  BUT - it is done and I'm sure he will LOVE it.   I've only really worked with acrylic paints when I craft, and this FolkArt Enamels paint, while it says it's acrylic paint for glass, it has a TOTALLY different texture and 'feel' and it.is.thick.  I wanted the paint to be a more solid color rather than opaque.  So I kind of 'globbed' it on to get the color I wanted, and that made the paint have a texture.  I really think I will like this paint after I play with it a few times.  I think the texture aspect will be fun to create and play with - who knows what I'll come up with?!

First of all, I drew on my 40 with a fine sharpie.  Then I stopped with the sharpie.....  the rest was done freehand. 

I put the tape on it for a 'line' to keep my 40 straight.  I filled in my numbers with purple paint, then wrote "happy birthday" with blue.  I used lime green to outline and dot my numbers and for Mr. Inspiring's name.  On the back, I used aqua. 

 After I had it the way I wanted it, I put it in my oven at 350 degrees for about a half hour.  Here's the finished product.

A couple of things I discovered while using this paint:
   -  My brushes cleaned up really well just using rubbing alcohol
   -  The paint gets a 'skin' on it after a few minutes, so if there was something
       small I wanted to remove, I used my xacto (is that how you spell it? it looks funny)
       knife, and scraped away what I didn't want.
   -  For bigger things I wanted to remove, I used a cotton pad with alcohol on it and
      wiped it away.
   -  When it first comes out of the oven, while hot/warm, the paint isn't quite set, and
      you can still remove and/or scrape with the knife.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend and that it's dry!!!  The ranch is expecting more rain this weekend, and the river/creek/stream is out of it's banks, so there's no place to cross to get to a bunch of the trails.  That's fine with me - - we're going to take our chain saw and help clean up.  I'm sure there are a bunch of trees down, blocking some of the paths.  And when we camp?  We ALWAYS eat very well!!

There goes the diet!! 

Hugs ~~ Suz


Have you tried the Enamels paint?  Have you painted anything on glass?  How did it turn out?  I'd LOVE to see your projects!!!        I'm thinking about using this paint on glass ball ornaments..........  What do you think??
    


I'm linking to these Wonderful Parties!!