A Warm Welcome, Front Patio Makeover

I have been working on the weekends and evenings to create a happy place to welcome guest... if we can ever have guest to our house again. I'm ready for when this COVID thing is all done. Anyway, I'm going to post on this for a couple of reasons. One, I have been posting things little by little and have been asked, where did you get... or what kind is that?? Let me try to add all the links on this post now to answer all the questions (but if I forget something, let me know :) ). Two, I want to remember what plants I bought this year and what paints I used so I can purchase the right things in the years to come. I have a really bad memory for these things.

So here is the before... Nothing really wrong with it, just wanted something different.

I took this picture above and started designing. I wanted to explain my ideas to my husband so he could see my vision clearly. I fell in love with this first image that has a wooden deck added onto the side so we could have more room. He was fine with it as long as I didn't paint our front door pink.... it was a deal.

  

  

Then he ran the numbers. He was looking into maintenance-free materials and for the price tag and how much we have traditionally used this space, it just wasn't worth it. So back to the drawing board.

I thought about this idea of covering the stained and old concrete and that lead me to paint. Why don't I just paint it. So I started my research and bought some paint. The minute I picked up the paint, my neighbor who is in the trades, strongly encourage me to not use what I had bought. Mostly winter issues and how it pealing off... He gave a couple more reasons but overall, I trust the guy and sent back the paint.

That put my husband on the path of researching concrete stains. We were happy to find a product from a local concrete place less than a block away (Brock White).  We first used the suggested degreaser from Prosoco and power washer. We also cleaned off the posts and took care of the chipping paint.

  

Then we waited for low humidity, and a sunny day.  I started early in the morning brushing the edges and sides of the concrete and then rolling the top services with this very strong smelling product. It's from a company called Increte and we tried to take every precaution when using it. Eye protection, tall rubber boots, plastic gloves, and well a ventilated area... All the good stuff to do this right! I applied a second coat 4 hours after the first and let it rest over night before putting anything on the concrete again.  A quick sand and repaint on the column and we were done with the base of the front porch.

Now to decorate.  I used my good bargain deal shopping skills finding all the coupons and sales. After the number came back on the macitence-free decking materials, the prices of the accessories didn't seem that bad.

Both of these rugs were bought at Wayfair. I love the welcome mat. It's really thick and I love the shape. It's a little messy dropping bits of fiber, but not really too bad. The rug under is right in my wheel house. I love the size for the space, and the texture. Another purchase from Wayfair was the potters by the door. I was looking for something that raised the plants but also was not tippy. These are perfect, and I think they will look great in my house in the winter.

The lower potter was from Goodwill... You know just one of those finds you run across at a thrift store that makes you come back for more. The little white plant was purchased because I had never seen that kind of a plant before. It's called a Crispy Wave or Japanese Asplenium nidus fern and was purchased at Home Depot. I also picked up the Jace Cache or Crassula Ovata and Croton 'Red Mammy' or Codiaeum variegatum there. The plant in the tall pot, I'm not sure what the name is, I got it from my Grandma Tweite years ago and it has had many generations of babies,

Continuing with the green on the front porch, I have a table that I also bought at Goodwill that fits so nicely on the end of the couch. It holds some of the many plants I have in my classroom. It's nice to have a space outside to display them. Once I posted about the potter with the numbers, I had lot's of people ask where I bought it. That is a DIY pot and I have a previous post about how I made that one. The planter place inside the pot was pre-made for me from 101 Market containing Colorblaze Lime Time, Colorblaze Cherry Brandy, Proven Accents Lemon Coral, Dolce Silver Gumdrop, and Heuchera Carnival Watermelon Coral Bells.

 

This gal isn't done with the plants yet.  This has been an ongoing and successful plant. These are called, Callisa Speces or Bolivian Jew or Turtle Vine, or Chain Plant, or even Inch Plant. No matter what you call it, It has thrived over time in this spot. It really doesn't see any sunlight until about 2pm until 8pm. We water it often but it drains well. As you can see, I have a cord going to most of the plants. This waters the plants when the sprinklers go at 5 am every day for a couple of minutes.

This is our new bench from Target. It works well now but we had to do a couple of adjustments to it. The pieces are all separate so when we would sit on it they would shift and become wonky... yes, that is what I said... wonky. They do have clasps that connect the legs to each other but they would fall off. There is metal mesh in the back and on the base so we zip tied the sections together and that has worked great. The cushions on the other hand would fall off when we sat down. To combat this I used shelf liner on the base and tied the back cushion through the mesh. 

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I spent the last two weeks out there distance teaching. I love the look of it and it fits the space well so I would probably purchase it again if given the chance to exchange. 

Now for a bit of Art! I wanted to create a space for art. I was gifted a bunch of frames once upon a time from my Aunt Jeanne and I sprayed one of them with spray paint, used 3M velcro strips and hung it on the door. Now to fill it with Art. I indulged myself one night painting picture, one after another after another. I found inspiration on instagram and all Artist were tagged on my IG post. I took my favorites and ran them through a laminator and bam... I have an interchangeable frame filled with art from our home.

I'm not done. I think I need some pillows and maybe a throw blanket. We have an order in for new siding to replace the damaged areas where the railing went into the side and I'm probably going to order a new light fixture. but overall... I love our new space.

Egg-A-Day Challenge

It's so important for us to create. I have done many monthly challenges in the past to assist me in this goal.  In the month of April, I decided to do a challenge on my own. I designed an Egg-a-Day. My family eats lots of eggs so we always have lots of supply.  I didn't hard boil all of them, so I was able to use the eggs for all of our cooking needs. And why not... this mini canvas goes to waste if I don't decorate it before using it.

It was fun to figure out not only what I was going to be designing the eggs with, but also what media, and how I would take the photo to document the adventure. I'll share a couple of eggs here, but feel free to visit MiniMatisseArt on Instagram to see the whole group.

I started the series with some of my more regular used themes in my drawings such as hands and eyes.  These are subjects that I use in a lot of my sketchbook designs. 

Many of my designs were created with Posca Pens. I love these things! I used them in my sketchbook all the time.  I don't have it in my budget yet to order them for my classroom, but I hope to have them someday for my students to use as well. I used many mediums to create my eggs. One of the most popular was these 'Tissue Paper Bleed Eggs'. For these eggs, I used the traditional egg dye kit to soaked the eggs in. Then when I removed them and they were still wet, I wrapped bleeding tissue paper on the egg and let it sit for a few minutes. After removing the paper, the ink would stay on the egg and you would end up with this tie-dye effect. Really simple and an awesome result! 

I created some very cutesy eggs just for fun! Again, half of the fun was taking the pictures so finding props and the right setting was important to me.

Some eggs were not even my idea... My sister came up with the corn idea. My husband came up with the 'title of the eggs'. I was inspired by my dear friend Ashley McKee (@Ashcanworks) for the 'U Matter' egg. She and her husband have developed this symbol and sell buttons on their Etsy shop. 

Sometimes I was inspired by my environment. The shell eggs and the colorful insides of eggs were both inspired by a visit to Florida over spring break. The open eggs were inspired by a piece of Artwork I saw while visiting Busch Gardens and the shells were inspired by our visit to the beach.  My husband just rolled his eyes when I said we needed to stop at a store on our vacation to pick up eggs... but he did it... he gets me :) The strawberries were inspired by prepping lunches for the week for my family. They just looked so pretty in the berry bowl my Aunt made our family. The proper lobster was inspired by a sketchbook drawing I did of a still life while out with my family at a restaurant called Grand Catch in St. Paul.

Other eggs were inspired by books. My daughter was doing research for her upcoming 'Wax Museum Project' on Julia Child. She got this book by Lisa Congdon about a variety of Bad Ass women that changed the world, illustrated beautifully might I add. The butterflies on the cover were perfect for me to draw on eggs. Then 'The Good Egg' by Jory John and Pete Oswald was introduced to me by Hassan's Media Specialist, Meagan Harapat. A-MAZ-ING book. Great illustrations and perfect to emulate for this project. 

Some of the eggs were inspired by Artist I admire. I admire the simplicity of Melissa Doty's work. She was perfect inspiration to the egg with the colorful half circle and bold black line. On my spring break experience, I spent some time in St. Petersberg, a city filled with Street Art. I was introduced to the work of @Kosharekart. I made the stacking doll eggs inspired by her work. The sweet garden and frog image above was inspired by Lauren Lowen's work. She is such a wonderful illustrator and after using her for inspiration for one of my lessons, I discovered she's a really good person too. She sent my class a letter encouraging them to continue creating! Below you see the Notorious RGB (Ruth Bader Ginsberg)... not an Artist, but certainly an inspiration. 

And other days, I just drew a bunny on an egg... and that was OK too. 

I really did have a fun time with this project over the month of April. If I'm feeling it next year, I might just do it again. But for this year, I'll kiss this project goodbye and start on another focus... Yep, That is right, I'm already working on another 'challenge' for myself. Start watching Instagram (@MiniMatisseArt) for my 'Wearable Art' project for the month of May.