Welcome to the jungle!

I have it listed here on my blog description that I like to paint and would be sharing some of my painting projects from time to time. Since I have recently gotten a couple emails asking me about my painting, I thought I'd share some with you here today. Believe it or not, to create this mural I did a LOT of stamping.


While all the animals are hand painted by me (using no stencils) almost all the background foliage is done with stamps. I say almost all the foliage, because there are some leaves, such as the palms above the leopard, that were hand painted. To stamp on the walls I used acrylic paint which I painted right onto the stamp with a foam brush. This way I could shade the stamp by applying several different colors of green paint. I could then get 2 images stamped per loading of paint onto the stamp. So, yes...it did take me a while to do this, as I did the entire room. It was a labor of love however, so I didn't mind. The room was painted for my boys (aged 9 and 7 at the time) and I loved seeing their faces when they would come home from school to see what I had painted that day.This is my youngest son Danny around the time that I finished the mural - had to be 10 years ago now. My oldest son eventually moved into his own room downstairs, leaving Danny with the jungle room...yes it is still painted like this much to Danny's dismay. He has been asking lately for me to repaint, but I must admit I hate the thought of covering up all my hard work. Actually, when he has friends over they all say it's cool...even though a lot of it is covered by speakers, amps and guitars.No, I don't have twins, but by the looks of this photo you might think I did. A couple months ago Danny asked me to take two photos of him - one playing his bass the other his guitar, then in Photoshop he combined the two...cool, huh? Danny is the one I talk about here when I say my son helped me figure this or that out on the computer. He's really good at computer stuff.

Anyways...back to the mural. The photos above show the main part of the mural which is on the wall under the window and can be seen from the doorway. I also painted other animals, frogs, lizards & snakes that you might find in the rain forest around the room strategically placed between dressers, desk, etc... One of my favorites was this cute little frog that is next to the door. I actually copied that little guy from a t-shirt one of the boys had at the time. The other animals I painted were inspired from posters, wall paper border and magazines. I had originally planned to paint a giraffe coming up from behind the bunk beds, but never did get to that.

Hope you enjoyed seeing photos of my very first mural project. I have painted several since this one, but I think this will always be my favorite. If you live here in the southeastern area of Michigan and are interested in having some painting done, please contact me. I also do faux finishes and stenciling.

Enjoy your day...it looks like it's going to be a beauty! I'm heading out to a family get-together in a while so I know my day will be good!

Sorry I've been MIA

I haven't posted anything since Monday because I've been so busy with my latest project. It is not related to stamping however, so I don't have any new samples to post...sorry! We are finally re-decorating one of our bathrooms. This is something I've been wanting to do for a very long time. I'm so happy we finally get to say goodbye to the ugly blue toilet & sink and the hideous flooring in the bath and in our laundry/mudroom! I'm so excited! I finally decided on which flooring and paint colors to choose - that was a huge decision!

The past few days I prepped the walls and today I am ready to prime. I will be a little bit sad to cover up the big sun I painted on the wall, but it has been almost 6 years since I did that, so it's time to say goodbye. It's hard to believe it was that long ago! The wallpaper border had curled up around the edges from all the steam from the shower, so I was glad to finally rip that down. I thought it was going to be easy since it was already coming away from the wall...WRONG! At one point I had attempted to fix the edges where it curled, so the glue I used was really hard to remove from the wall...lots of scrapping & sanding! Remind me to never put up any more wallpaper in a bathroom in the future...what a pain! And why did I have to put it at both the ceiling and the chair rail? Sounded good at the time!

This photo does show some stamping. See all the stars? Those were stamped all over the top half of the wall with gold metallic paint. The background behind the stars is a subtle taupe glaze that was sponged on. The sun was painted in metallic paints so it is really shimmery when the light hits it. The bottom half of the wall was sponged with several shades of blue to tie in the blue from sink & toilet and also the dark navy of the wallpaper. It's hard to see in the photos but there is also some metallic gold sponged in there as well.

Can you guess what colors we chose for the bathroom re-do? The walls will be similar to Mellow Moss with a touch more taupiness (is that a word?) to it. I will probably end up doing a rag rolling treatment on the walls with a tone on tone look. For accents I am using Perfect Plum and sort of an Always Artichoke. The hardware such as towel bars, light fixture, etc...will be polished chrome. The new marble sink came in yesterday and it is just gorgeous! I can't wait for Mike to install it! I guess that means I better get busy and paint! Have a GREAT weekend!