Umbrella mystery....solved!!

After sending an e-mail out to all my neighbors, the umbrellas have been found!! They were on the porch of a neighbor four acres over. Silly UPS. I think sometimes they're just moving too fast for their own good.....zipping here there and everywhere! All's well that ends well and that's what really counts, right?!!

I spent the morning painting polka dots on them. Aren't they pretty?!! LOVE them! The beauty of these umbrellas is that I'll be able to change out the dots whenever I get the whim to just by painting over the existing dots. Reuse, recycle!! Red for 4th of July. Orange and black for Halloween. The simplest things tickle my fancy. Polka dots. Who knew? ha!

These umbrellas came from pearlriver.com. Another big thank you to Alice for the great tip. I had no idea you could paint your own umbrellas until I read through all the colors and styles. Wow! They have lots of umbrellas to choose from. Me, being Miss Picky Pants of America of course, had to make this a do-it-yourself project as soon as I saw the word "paintable". Why have everyday average when you can have supercalifragilist pink, aqua, and yellow polka dots?!!!

It was easy peasy. You take a three inch disc sponge (available at Michael's) and swirl it in craft paint. Then you dab it off. In this case I used two glass Pyrex dish lids for my paint palettes. Then you lightly swirl the sponge onto the umbrella and follow up with your paintbrush to give it a handpainted look. Did I not tell you, easy peasy?!! All twelve umbrellas took just under two hours to do. Now wouldn't these be spectacular at a wedding, bridal or baby shower? Golly goodness, what fun!!

Enough fun though, it's back to work for me. I finished decoupaging music sheets onto shelves of a primitive cabinet today too, but, I still have to put the second coat of paint on another cabinet and stuff three bears. It's Flourishes week! No rest for the weary!!

Warmest bear hugs, Aleta

P.S. Yup, that's Max in the picture....aka Mr. January. You know how he loves having his picture taken! It also shows you the size of the umbrellas....a nice 32 inches big!