Do It Yourself - Pottery Painting

My friend Amy (pictured below) has a tradition she started when her little boy, Brayden (also below) was a baby. She started going to this fun place...Do It Yourself Crafts, in Homewood, AL. Its a place that has tons of different plates, bowls, cannisters, ornaments...you name it, they've got it. You pick out whatever you want to paint on and the rest goes as follows:

Once you have picked the item(s) you want to paint, then you have to decide on your design. There are books with examples of past projects or there are finished pieces of pottery sitting out that can help inspire your creative side. Amy and I opted for doing Christmas plates and a few other items for me that will remain disclosed until a later date...Christmas presents for family members...who read this blog :)

I will say...at first I wasn't a fan of doing a Christmas plate. I went in thinking I wanted to do something not so specific to a holiday...but the lady who works there swayed me otherwise. She said she does a Christmas plate with her little boy every year and she loves getting them out to serve things on at the holidays. So anyway...here is how our day went.

There wasn't anybody else there so we pretty much got one-on-one attention. Here is Brayden getting his little foot painted.



Brayden using his fingers to do the Christmas lights around the edge of his plate...couldn't get a smile b/c he was concentrating :)


Brayden's finished product...


And now it's Briggs turn. First she painted his foot...(and I just gotta say...look at those rolls on that fat little leg...MMM...LOVE IT!)


And we just smooshed (is that a word?) it on the plate...it was a joint effort to get it exactly in the right spot without him wiggling too much...


Here he is working on something with his hands...I promise to show the finished product later..like after Christmas...b/c it is TOO CUTE! :)

I will say...Brayden is two and Briggs is 5 1/2 months....so it was interesting to see how we got to the end product. They had different techniques for the different ages, and the ladies working there were very helpful.



Here is Briggs final product. We opted for a reindeer with just his feet since he is so little...

Overall...it was a really fun experience and hopefully a place we can continue to go and make keepsakes and memories for years to come. Thanks for inviting us Amy and Brayden!