Hand Painted Wood Ornaments

A while back I bought a box of little wood slices with the intention of painting them all with little landscapes and giving them as gifts. If I could get enough of them painted before Black Friday, I was considering selling them to hopefully make a few bucks before Christmas. It was mid November before I painted any, so yeah, I think I’ll have to buy another box and try again for next year.

Instead of stressing over getting a bunch of ornaments painted and shipped before Black Friday, I prepped all of them with Watercolor Ground and had the kids who joined us for Thanksgiving paint them. Ages ranged from 4 to 18 and they went to town making some really awesome ornaments. I brought Tombow markers, some inexpensive acrylic paint, and a set of iridescent watercolor that was on sale. I was so proud that they all had fun and spent a good amount of time painting their ornaments on Thanksgiving. It was a great activity for them to all do together that wasn’t a video game.

Watercolor Ground is a painting medium that can be painted onto porous surfaces to allow them to be painted with watercolor or gouache paint. I applied two coats to each of the wood slices and it allowed the wood to behave a little like watercolor paper. It’s not nearly as absorbant and you do get some bleeding or weirdness from the grain of the wood, but it’s overall a much easier surface to paint on than if I’d just painted on raw wood.

Of course I had to paint one wood piece to see how it would turn out and made this little painting of Half Dome from Yosemite National Park. I LOVED how it turned out. The medium doesn’t behave exactly like watercolor paper, but it’s close enough to make for some fun little paintings. On this one I used a combination of watercolor, gouache, and water-based brush pens. I made a TikTok video showing this process that you can see here.

I had so much fun with that first ornament that I had to make another one… or a couple more.

This time I tried for an epic sunset at Joshua Tree National Park. With the sunset I tried harder to get more of the look of a watercolor wash. The paint doesn’t blend quite as well as it does on paper, but I was happy with what I was able to achieve. Then I used gouache and brush pens for the trees and foreground. What a fun and unique park to explore! Here’s is the TikTok video I made of the process.

The next one I did was a Christmas gift for my son’s 2nd grade teacher. She has two parrots and my son had the genius idea to paint her beautiful birds onto one of these ornaments. He sent her an email asking which breeds they are (Blue Fronted Amazon and Solomon Island Eclectus) and she sent him a few photos. I was more than happy to paint them onto the little piece of wood and he wrote his name on the back. You can view the TikTok video here.

The next ornament I made for my sister of Babylon Arch. She and I hiked to this beautiful arch in southern Utah last year while we were both on a women’s retreat. It’s such a magical place with beautiful views of the Virgin River and gorgeous Navajo sandstone. For this ornament I used gouache for the whole thing. It’s been fun to re-remember how to use gouache, get the right consistency, and how to layer to get the affect I want. Here you can view the TikTok video.

For the last ornament I made this year, I made this scene from Coyote Gulch for my friend Michelle. She and I, along with another rad woman, backpacked to Coyote Gulch this past spring. I wrote a long blog post about it earlier this year. The third night of our trip, we camped under this alcove and it was such an epic camping spot. Here’s the TikTok showing this ornament’s progress.

Making these ornaments has been such a joy this fall that I'm planning to order more wood slices and then spend the spring and summer next year painting a stock of them that I will sell online and locally. I am hoping to get into some local arts and crafts fairs and festivals next year selling prints and stickers, so maybe I can sell some of these ornaments there too.

What are some epic locations you’d like to see painted on an ornament?

Laura's Holiday Card - 2020

I have had the privilege of creating some of the most creative holiday cards with Laura over the years. She comes up with some of the most fun ideas. Sometimes they are simple, and she does most of the work from a photography or Photoshop standpoint and all I’m doing is adding text. Sometimes it’s more elaborate and we have fun with Photoshop together. It’s an adventure each and every time.

2020 was quite a year, and her card reflected that sentiment exactly.

Laura did most of the Photoshop on this gem with the gremlins. How about a zoomed in look at those photos!

Click here and you can see every holiday card I’ve done for Laura. It turned out awesome. Thanks, Laura!!

Valentine's Day 2021

We’re still dealing with a pandemic and I fully expected our kids’ teachers to send emails asking us not to send valentines to school next week. Our 1st grade teacher actually did, and then rescinded and laid out plans to have us send valentines to school ahead of time and kids will do lots of hand-washing before valentines are exchanged.

My 5th grader informed me that this will be his LAST year exchanging valentines at school because in 6th grade, middle schoolers don’t do valentines anymore (insert eyeroll).

Since we spent the first half of the school year attending school virtually, it became apparent how valuable dry erase makers are in our classrooms. Dry erase markers are used every day in both my kids’ classes to reduce the amount of paper used and hopefully reduce the number of high-touch spaces. Caps get lost and markers dry out, they are played with, and our teachers end up going through Expo markers like water.

We wanted to do another year of candy-free and non-edible valentines, so it was fitting for us to give Expo markers this year and we brainstormed a bunch of fun, punny sayings to put on them.

To save time, instead of drawing my kids’ faces, I created cartoons using a free Photoshop Action Set. The drawings we used on last year’s valentines are now more than two years old and my kids’ hairstyles have changed a lot, it was time for something new.

Expo markers came in packs of 18 at Sam’s Club, so I bought four packs and bagged up the extras into Ziplock bags for both teachers with their own cards.

Supplies & Cost Breakdown:

• 4 packs of 18 Expo Markers - $54.96 @ Sam’s Club. I think they were cheaper at Costco, but my local store was out.

• 1 roll double-sided tape (I considered picking up washi tape, but decided to save a few bucks)

• 15 sheets of card stock

• paper cutter

• computer and printer - I used the free Toon Artist Photoshop Action from Adobe to turn my kids into cartoons. Then I created the heart pattern, added text, and put it all together in Illustrator.

I already had all of the supplies listed except for the markers, so the cost came out to $.94 per valentine. It probably would’ve been cheaper if my Costco had these markers in stock, online lists them at 18 for $10.99. A pack of 36 markers is currently $21.27 on Amazon, or a box of 12 for $7.95, but I didn’t want to wait for shipping. I probably used a few bucks in printer ink, but I use HP’s Instant Ink program, so I have no idea how much that ended up being.

These were definitely more than I would have liked to spend on valentines, but they turned out cute and heck, next year we’ll only be making them for ONE class.

And in true reMARKably average parenting fashion, these were done a full week early because I got my weeks mixed up and thought their Valentine’s Day parties were THIS Thursday instead of next Thursday. In the end, I didn’t really need to save time and I could’ve ordered Expo markers from Amazon. I’m going to bed now.

Valentine's Day 2020

We don’t really celebrate Valentine’s Day. Both my husband and I think it’s a very commercial holiday; we didn’t even celebrate when we were dating. The fact that the anniversary of our first date is January 31st (22 years!) was enough for us to just skip Valentine’s Day all together.

Since my kids started school, we’ve done a smidge more, but still not THAT much. I do step up to reasonably-above-average in the parenting department and make custom valentines for their class parties. Every year I expect them to ask for boxed sets from the store and they continue to surprise me with wanting something fun and custom.

Last year I vowed to not send candy to school. This year I vowed to not send food at all. We scoured Pinterest for ideas and saw fun sayings to go with toy airplanes. A thorough Amazon search for inexpensive airplane gliders at different sizes, price points, and availability to get here within a few days (because you KNOW we didn’t start these until a few days before Valentine’s Day) and we found these great gliders! They came in clear poly bags (which I really liked) and had a bunch of different color combinations.

I took the same cartoon faces I made of my boys from last year and turned them into pilots and I LOVE how they turned out.

I don’t think I will be able to get away with these same cartoons next year. I’ll have to make new ones.

The card stock was printed with two per 8.5x11 page and then I trimmed them with a paper cutter and folded them in half. Two staples attached them to the clear poly bags.

We found a bunch of different sayings for these, and these three were the winners. I wanted to use “you’re so fly” but my kids had NO idea what that meant. I think I showed my age.

Price Breakdown:

Airplanes: Amazon, $16.99 for 36. I ordered two boxes total for my kids’ classes, so $36.44 including sales tax.
Printing: Office Depot, color printing onto #65 card stock, $17 including sales tax
Paper Cutter: already had one
Stapler & staples: already had those

Total: $53.44 which was just about $.74 cents per valentine. And since there are 26 kids in each of my kids’ classes, we had a few extras that we gave to teachers, neighbors, and a few non-school friends. This was definitely more than I wanted to spend, but my kids LOVE how they turned out and so do I. I may have to add these to my Etsy shop for next year!

Laura's Holiday Card - 2019

Laura’s awesome holiday cards are always creative and they never disappoint; and this year was no exception. I also need to give her family credit for being so enthusiastic about these fun holiday cards.

She took photos of everyone in the family separately and I pieced them together in Photoshop. I LOVE how it turned out. The comic book theme with the text totally meshed with the silliness of the photo.

And how about a zoom in on those joyriding kids, freaked out parents, and a terrified pug!

Thanks so much Laura and a very Merry Christmas to you and your family!

Click here to see all of the fun holiday cards I’ve done for Laura and her family.

Our Holiday Card - 2019, and more!

It’s December 20th and we’re winding down the school week and getting ready to head to northern California to spend Christmas with family. As of today, I’m no longer accepting custom orders for holiday cards for 2019. If you card is already in progress, then I’ll get your order finished before we leave. All listings in my Etsy shop are either Instant Downloads or calendars. I can still handle orders for custom family calendars since I will have my laptop with me when traveling.

In the meantime, both my Hanukkah and Christmas cootie catchers are on sale for just $1 in my Etsy shop. Show your kids how much fun these were when you were a kid. The Christmas cootie catcher will remain $1 until December 25th and the Hanukkah cootie catcher will be $1 until December 30th. A page of folding instructions is included with your instant download. You know… in case it’s been a while since you’ve folded one of these. They look best and are easiest to fold when printed on plain paper.

Click on either image to get to the listings in my Etsy shop.

For our family holiday card, we’ve been going to a local photo studio for Santa photos for the last six years called FotoFly. They have one of the parents wear the Santa suit so the kids are comfortable and your chances of getting smiling faces is much higher. It’s been a family tradition to figure out whether our boys will wear matching clothes or PJs or if we’ll do a theme or not. This year, both boys wanted to wear their taekwondo uniforms and we borrowed a black belt from our studio so Santa could wear it. Because, of course Santa would be a black belt.

I had actually created a more traditional design with a lovely script font and Christmas-y plaid background, but it was way too serious for the photo. A comic book theme just worked the best. I had these printed at Office Depot instead of my usual Overnight Prints because I ran out of time. Gotta love having them ready in an hour.

Wishing you and yours a joyful and peaceful holiday season, no matter what you celebrate.