Furniture Painting...With Kids!

My dear husband and I have been quite busy lately (I mean, aren't we all, right?) and working a lot on the weekends. We've taken on some serious tag team parenting - I paint for six hours on Saturday till the end of nap time; he goes into the office on Saturday afternoon till dinner; he goes to a casting call all day Sunday; I leave the house to work on some sketches on Sunday evening. We kind of miss each other. 

We promised some actual, for reals family time this past weekend. The feral one (older brother) wanted family time to involve painting furniture since I haven't let him help me lately. I thought that was an awesome idea. Dear husband was not so sure. Luckily, the feral one and I are good at ignoring dear husband's voice of reason. 

Here's the play-by-play of Saturday afternoon's kid-friendly-ish painting project.

Step 1. Find a piece of furniture in the house that we don't care about. Pretty easy for us since so much of our furniture is from Target or Ikea. We found a porch side table that seemed perfect.

Step 2. Design decisions. "Feral one, what should we paint on the table?" "A dinosaur eating a honey badger!" "Obviously. Why did I ask?"

Step 3. Draw and cut out a stencil out of contact paper and affix it to the table top.

Step 4: Give the boys paint pens and let them go to town. Let paint dry.

Step 5: Tape around the table legs, give boys paint pens and let them at it again.

Step 6: Add a couple of finishing touches as directed by the feral one. "Mom, can you make them talk?" "Yeah, buddy! Of course."

And done! True awesomeness, right?

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Happy Birthday, Avery O Design!

It's been one year since I officially started my business, Avery O Design. Still so young, but slowly growing! It's time to list my first year accomplishments and give myself a little happy birthday feel good moment:

1. I've completed nine murals for clients, with two more commissioned pieces being painted in the next month. 
2. I've completed three mural pieces in my own home. 
3. I've begun playfully and experimentally painting furniture.
4. I've led a community mural project at the Austin Mini Maker Faire.
5. I've built two websites.
6. I've learned marketing via social networking and I've kinda gotten into this whole blogging thing.

Huh! Okay, not a bad start looking back at it. In fact, I'm pretty proud of all that I've accomplished, especially since it's been done with two wild toddlers around most of my days. 

So, what's a birthday without presents? No, no. Not for me, silly. A present for you! Well, a present for ONE of you. I just finished painting this nightstand/sidetable, and am giving it away to say thanks for all of the love and support in my first year of business.

Interested? GIve Avery O Design a shout out on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or wherever you socially network and leave me a comment with any suggestions for my next furniture project. A lucky one of you will get a birthday present from me! Oh, I do love birthdays!

Much love and thanks, Avery O