MAKE IT THERAPEUTIC...

It's here! One of the 'bestest' days ever!! Happy Fall Y'all! I've waited about 300 days for it, I've decorated my house for it, and I planned on celebrating it with a bonfire since autumn officially falls on a Friday...and wouldn't you know it-it's 90 flippin degrees outside! And yes, I have the air conditioner going in the house. WHAT THE HECK! Two weeks ago we were outside with jackets sitting around the bonfire. Mother Nature plays a mean game! And, I decided I wasn't about to let her get the last word today. Nothing was going to damper my inner celebration!

Many of my friends and family know this Not So Little Secret about me...I love to color. I mean, I LOVE to color, especially with crayons. When I was a little girl, I remember going across the street to a neighbor's house. This wasn't a "kid" neighbor, this was an adult neighbor. Not sure why I was there, but for whatever reason I remember she pulled out crayons and a coloring book. Sheltered in the coloring book was a page ripped out and already colored. She told me she colored it and just put it back in the book when she was finished. This picture, to my 8 or 9 year old self, was like a Monet! I was amazed! Only it wasn't a Monet...it was a fish. Just a single picture of a fish, but she colored this fish unlike anything I'd ever seen colored! Was this the work of a crayon? I had to ask! Yes it was and I was about to use the same ones for my personal Monet. She used at least a million colors on this single fish and my 8 or 9 year old mind was BLOWN. I didn't know you could do that. How was that even possible? Aren't you just suppose to use one color per animal? I mean, except maybe for the eyes, you could go all fancy and use a second color for the eyes! And if you are coloring in a person, you get to use several colors depending on their clothes...one shade of green for the shirt, one shade of red for the pants, one shade of blue for the hat, and then there was the toss up for what color to use for the hair! But it was ALWAYS just one shade or one crayon...not a million. But this lady used a whole box of crayons on one fish. I'm telling you...MIND BLOWN! And the way she colored...all the lines went in the same direction, not up and down and all around. I thought the only rule was to make sure you stayed in the black lines! But seeing all the lines going in the same direction AND staying in the black lines...Mind Blown again!

I found as I grew, whenever we had some sort of project in school, I loved when the teacher would show us examples or "work" from prior students. Their work became my inspiration, just like the fish did. I remember in 5th grade, my teacher Sr. Mary Alcantra (yes I went to a Catholic School!) wanted us to draw something (can't remember what or why), and she showed us several pieces of previous students' artwork. One particular picture stood out to me. It was a picture of a creek, with a little bridge and off to the side was a house. Now, this wasn't some square box house and the creek wasn't just blue lines. This picture was a Thomas Kincade look alike! The house had a roof with different pitches, not some triangle. And the water actually had ripples! How did this magnificent artist do that? In fifth grade? Mind Blown once more.

Nothing has changed. I'm still not an artist, but I am always inspired by pictures, how-to(s), paint projects, fabric projects, etc. I wish I could be one of those people who sit there and come up with great ideas and create new things, but I'm not. I'm one of those people who research a project, watch videos to make something, and LOVE magazines. One year my daughter won a school contest selling magazines because I bought them all! But thanks to the internet and Pinterest, I can spend my magazine money on supplies now lol.

Anyway, one of my favorite activities for fall and winter is to get out my coloring books and both boxes of 120 crayons each PLUS 9(with built in sharpener) the box of 96 crayons (you can never have enough!), yes that's 336 crayons lol and create vivid dimensional pictures. I only color from autumn or Christmas themed books, too; that's all. And, just like the lady from my youth, I stick it back into the book when I'm finished. The picture below is my collection that sits in my hall closet that awaits me every year.

I literally can't pass up a good coloring book! My favorites are of "real people", not cartoon like characters, although that's what a majority of these books are because it's hard to find the "real life looking people" characters. For example, I like the Victoria era Christmas scenes with the ice skaters and horse drawn carriages not Scooby Doo building a snowman...I once downloaded and printed off the story The Night Before Christmas that was in black and white so I could color it. I completed the cover and that was it lol. Too much detail and I normally take one hour to color a page-I learned to use more than one crayon to color in each object :) However, today I debated whether to color or do something else. So, while I was out and about picking up some gifts, I found something cheap and fun to celebrate autumn. Paint your own sun catchers! I mean, who doesn't love pretty little sun catchers lol? I was elated AND it was 40% off :) JACKPOT! So I wasted no time when I got home and for the next couple of hours, this was my much needed therapy.

Of course I had to paint the owls first! And see those pumpkins? Well, I painted them and I just didn't like them. I thought they were weird looking when I was finished. Well, evidently I should have looked at the box they all came in. Pictures of them painted were on the box and the pumpkin one was cute...and I ruined mine! Like I said, I need inspiration, I can't come up with cute all on my own!

The scarecrow reminded me of Raggedy Ann for a second, but when I looked at the box, I wasn't too far off. They used blue where I used green. I must be getting better :)

And here they are minus my ugly pumpkins! They're cute when I hold them up to the sun so Mother Nature didn't beat me after all! There are also a couple more to paint so I'm excited to have another day of it. I hope everyone around the world enjoys their First Day of Autumn like I have and maybe even find something therapeutic to do to welcome in the season. Now's the time to change those garden flags, put out the autumn wreath (or be creative and make one like I did with a scarf), add some fall foliage (real or fake!) around the mantel and add more candles (can never go wrong with lots of candles!), buy some pumpkins, plant some mums, build a scarecrow, and stock up on hot chocolate and marshmallows for the bonfire for those cool nights we are soon to have! Have a great weekend everyone!

#crayons #coloring #autumn #crafting #frontdoordecor #decorate