Tranquil Happiness: March 2014

I love my Happy Room and I love my Tranquil Happiness blog. I decided I wanted to paint a canvas for my Happy Room and use the initials of my blog. This was so much fun to just freely lay down a stencil and paint randomly. Check out how it progressed...

It started with a blank canvas, prepped with Gesso

Do you like how I use an old tobacco and pipe holder/humidor for my water and brush holder?

I used acrylic paint with a few stencils each day, then let dry

Here is the finished painting. The T and H not only represent my blog name, but are also my initials.

Here is a display of the finished picture along with the stencils.

Did I mention all the stencils are Tim Holtz? I love his line of products!

It was one of those let-your-mind-run-free kind of paintings...no rhyme or reason...just fun and cheery colors.

Next, I'm going to try the same technique on an unfinished wood box and use all browns & earth tones to create a distressed look. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Until next time, do something crafty and get in your happy place.....

I have always called my studio, The Happy Room. You are not allowed in there unless you are HAPPY. This is where I do all my arts & crafts and when I'm in there, I'm HAPPY.

I'm always attracted to trees, barns, doors, windows and houses. When driving, I will stop and take a picture of a tree that has a lot of character in its extended arms, old barns and houses, etc...

I see a lot of artists online that will cover and/or paint blocks of various shapes and sizes of wood. I had a few pieces of shelving that gave me the idea to cut them into house shapes. (honestly, my husband cut them for me) Here's what I started with:

Next, I painted the edges of the blocks with brown paint and let it dry. I didn't start out with a plan other than wanting to cover them with Tim Holtz printed paper and spell something on them. I had seven and was trying to think of 7 letter words ...BELIEVE....IMAGINE....VINTAGE...ANTIQUE...
Then it struck me, I was putting them in THE HAPPY ROOM and it fit perfect, as long I put THE and ROOM on their own block. I was elated with this idea!

Next, I got out my Tim Holtz Idea-ology paper stash, Idea-ology tickets and tags, along with my treasure chest of Tim Holtz embellishments. My little chest of treasures was so much fun to play with!

I traced the houses onto the paper, cut them out and used Distress Ink to ink the edges. I just love the inked edge look. I used my Cricut machine to cut out the letters and I inked the edges of them, as well. Next, I played for quite some time with the treasure chest of embellishments, tickets and tags. Once I had everything just right, I started mod-podging everything to the wood houses. I started with the paper house, added the letters, then added the tickets, tags and embellishments. For the metal items, I used Ranger Inkssentials Glossy Accents to secure them.

I am quite pleased with the way they turned out. I truly love them and they make me HAPPY!