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Humane Society visit

Over lunch a few of the girls at work and our dogs (Luna, Ninee and Guss)  went to the Winnipeg Humane Society. We had seen on twitter that they were in need of rawhide for their dogs, so all of our dogs gave up their allowances to buy them some treats. We even got a tour of the entire facility and got to see all the puppies. On top of having wonderful staff and volunteers, the building is also very beautiful and environmentally friendly. They tried to include as many local building products as possible and they even have a rainwater collection system. Just all around an incredible place!

Here are a few pictures of our trip. Luna also got a new winter jacket from their cute little store.

Ciao

cutie
sharing the love
will keep me warm this winter
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Xmas sale

I can’t believe it’s that time of the year already when we all start thinking about Christmas shopping. My good friend and fellow artist Charlene Brown and I have joined forces this year and are putting on a Christmas sale at Charlene’s studio. Please come visit us….drink some coffee….do a little shopping (pottery, jewelry, photography and textiles)….Nov 26 & 27, 12-5p, 1178 McMillan.

Xmas sale
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Great painting technique

We are currently renovating the upstairs of our house and I have been thinking of doing something special on the wall behind our bed. I love the look of wallpaper but didn’t really want to go through the hassle, plus if you get tired of the look then it would be so much harder to change. I was asking myself why I couldn’t recreate the look of wallpaper with paint. I’m an artist after all! I started looking around on the internet for stencils and found lots of really nice ones. Most of them a bit too girly for K. but I ended up finding one that we both love. A great pattern of circles overlapping. Modern, clean and geometric!  I got the stencil in the mail  last week and this weekend I finally got to try it out. We painted the room in 2 different greys (Benjamin Moore Whitestone and Gull Wing). The original idea for the stencil was to use a varnish only so that the effect would be very subtle. I did a test strip in the studio and realized that it worked well on lighter colors but that the Gull Wing grey was too dark for it to work, so I adjusted the plan and used the Whitestone for the stenciling. It took 5 hours to complete but it is so worth it. The end result is amazing. Here are a couple quick photos. I will make sure to blog again once the bamboo hardwood floor is down and the room is put back together.

Here is what you need for this project:

•Paint – 0 VOC (better for you and the environment – you don’t use very much paint so maybe you can use up some paint from a previous project. Think green!)

•Dense  paint roller

• Masking tape

•Stencil (I got mine at cuttingedgestencils.com)

•Spray adhesive (optional – I didn’t use it and it worked out fine)

•Lots of patience!

Just think of the possibilities. Be creative and green at the same time.

Ciao

Anja

First row of stenciling
worth the hard work