My Favorite Project Of All Time

I have definitely hyped this project up, with my FB post yesterday and the title of this post. But just wait. You'll see why in a minute. But first an explanation.

Guys- I was struggling. I've already written about that. But man, I really had a rough few months this summer. I know EVERYONE had a rough few months. I'm not alone in that. But I really went through some bullshit, aside from dealing with the pandemic. It sucked.

Queue my mother. And her love of watching craft videos. Where she saw a lady doing a paint by number. Which prompted her to go to the website the crafty lady purchased her piece by. Which then prompted her to upload a photo of my sweet pretty girl and order it for me.

About 6 weeks after she placed the order- and told me she bought me something then made me wait with no details, it arrived. And I about died. Like I hadn't already been doing enough crying those months, this made me cry again. With tears of joy. It was the most perfect gift at the most needed time.

I opened the tube up and unrolled the canvas and knew IMMEDIATELY which photo is was. It is one of my favorite photos of Miss Janie Jane. Which my mother did not know at the time- she just saw it on my FB page and knew that was the one to use. You can't tell really from the photo below- it is hard to see the design but keep scrolling.

I was so excited to start working on it. If you've never done one of these, you really have to concentrate. There are really small brushes with really small areas to paint. And as crafty and as DIY as I am- I do not have a steady hand whatsoever. But it was so much fun to do!

Crazy eyes!

You definitely have to be strategic on where you paint. You have to make sure the area around where you are painting is dry before you start next to it. So it's almost like you can only do about an hour or two at a time in order to make sure the canvas is dry before you start again.

The above two photos you can really start to see the photo- it was once her eyes were colored in. She really started to look like Janie. Last week I finished her up.

I mean, seriously? How stinkin adorable is she? For reference, this is the original photo below.

Isn't it crazy how much they look alike? I completely remember taking this photo. She was still a puppy- it was a couple of months after I got her and she finally sat when I told her to sit. I clapped and screeched and was like "YOU DID IT!!!!" and she tilted her head like- Lady, you crazy. But I just love this photo!

Yesterday I wrapped the canvas around a frame. I had a large canvas that I painted way back when that I ripped off of the frame and cut down to the size of this canvas- which is 18" X 18". The frame is an inch shorter on all four sides.

Then I laid the canvas paint side down and stapled it to the wood.

The canvas has a 1" border around it that was supposed to be painted the pink fleshy color of her belly. I didn't want it that color- and decided I wanted it the navy/gray that I recently used for the bathroom vanity. So I taped her up and got to finishing her.