Family Valentines craft night

Yesterday evening, after a wonderful dinner and dessert made by my wonderful hubby, we had a fun family craft night.

Rick 'antiquing' his glass.

Melissa came up with the idea of painting wine glasses for Valentines day. She picked up 2 inexpensive glasses for her and Dorian and I re-purposed 2 glasses from the china cabinet. I just happened to have a set of 2 left from a bigger set that is all broken now, so I used those for Rick and I to paint.

Gotta love Dorians face...

The paint was an enamel based paint for glass and wood that once painted can be either air cured for 21 days or cured in an oven heated to 325'. I opted for the air curing method, I just did not feel to comfortable putting wine glasses in my oven heated to 325', maybe it would have been fine but I don't know enough about it and did not want to ruin our project or be picking glass out of the bottom of the oven!

Dino's in love by Dorian

Polka dots and hearts by Steph

Grapes on the vine by Rick and squiggles and hearts by Melissa

It was a fun, inexpensive way to creatively spend the evening together with the family, After the wine glasses we hit the Wii for a while for a little 4-way racing in Maria Kart. Boy oh boy, I really am not so very good at some of those games! Very fun night :)

True loves kiss :)

An Artist in my house

Actually... there are more than just one! SO maybe I should say the 

'featured' artist in the house.

My daughters boyfriend, Dorian, has been staying with us this summer. (Mostly to help me out while I am recovering but I suspect that it is just a good excuse for them to not be apart!)

He recently spent some time painting. Both of these were gifts that they wanted to give while going on vacation to NYC this week.

Dorian in deep concentration

 My dining room turned into a temporary art studio.

 Lighthouse painting, acrylics, a birthday present for Melissa's grandmother. (not the best picture, a little angled, but you get the idea!)

 A thank you gift for Melissa's Uncle Willie, my brother, for letting them crash at his apartment in NYC for the week.

This is from a photo taken on Assateague Island, MD. In it is Melissa with her Uncle Willie and a wild pony. 

It was very thoughtful of him to paint for my family. The nice thing is my family will truly appreciate them, after all there are quite a few artists that have come down the line!