I feel like painting. I haven’t painted much since my kids were born, but I have this blank wall in my new dining area, and it’s screaming for something totally cool.

What I wanted for it was some old, weathered wooden barn sign or a vintage advertisement- but since vintage posters cost big bucks, I thought I might try and make my own coolness. So I went out to get a canvas. Canvas isn’t usually my medium- I paint on coldpress illustration board, most of the time, but I was looking for something about 48″ square, and that makes board impossible. But, you can stretch a canvas to any size you can build a frame- excellent! Until I saw how much a new canvas costs- holy smokes!! Over 100 bucks for the size I have in mind.

Not gonna happen…

So I went to Home Depot. I bought some 2″ square fence stringers, and found a piece of 1/8″ 4′ x 8′ birch plywood on the seconds rack. The wood guy was happy to rip the piece of plywood in two equal squares, so I left with two 4-foot square pannels, and enough 2×2 to frame them out- all for $8. Yes!

It was a little hard managing two pieces of plywood, eight stringers, a race-car cart, a 3 year old and a 13 month old. But I did it- and now my easel is set up and I am itching to paint.

If only some fairy would show up to feed, change, and entertain my kids. As I write, one of them is hanging on me begging for a snack, one just broke of the hot water handle in the bathroom, necessitating a call to DH to pick up a new faucet on the way home, and another is crying at me from the bedroom to put Boobah on…

Sure, I’m gonna paint.