Rock Art

So, I love rocks :) and a couple of years ago I decided to use rocks a my medium for my art.  I began the long process of selecting my favorite rocks, washing them and preparing them for my creation.  I finished this one that is hanging in my bathroom.

I am going to start a new one soon, I will show you when I get it finished :)

piper

V & P CUSTOM Made Paintings of your child's or grandchild's artwork for SALE

You can purchase a Custom made V & P painting of your child's or grandchild's precious artwork!

All you need to do is dig out your child’s priceless drawings or have your child create some new ones.  I found different pictures from children’s books, internet images and magazines that I liked and asked my daughter to draw her version of them.  Then, I chose my favorites or the ones that would work best for what I had in mind and used them to make my paintings.

Some ideas for V & P Paintings...

*Have an older sibling or cousin draw pictures that can be transformed into adorable paintings to decorate the new baby’s nursery.

*Use the picture of your family that your daughter drew at school to have made into a precious painting to hang over your mantle.

*Have your son draw a picture of those flowers he picked for you on Mother’s day and when we are finished with it, you can have a painting to hang in your office for years to come.

*Great gifts for grandparents, moms, dads, a baby shower or just for you!

If you would like to order a Custom Made V & P Painting follow these easy steps.

1.   Scan your child’s drawing and email it to us at merrellgirls@gmail.com.  (When scanning and emailing a drawing, the image could be too light, you might have to trace over it to darken it so the scanner picks up the entire image).  Through email we will discuss the details of your custom painting.  Once we have gathered all the details, you can proceed to order your painting by following the next steps.

This is an example of a child's drawing that could be scanned and emailed.

This is the finished 8x10" painting with the child's original drawing.

2.  Choose the size of canvas:     8x10"($50)     11x14"($60)      16x20"($70)   

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

3.  Choose the colors from the provided choices below.
 

4.  When merrellgirls have confirmed the details of your painting you may place your order below.

5.  We will begin painting your child’s creation when we have the order confirmation!

**When choosing to send us your child’s drawing, we do reserve the right to decline an image if it will not work well for this process.
Any questions please contact merrellgirls at merrellgirls@gmail.com

Sizes

8x10 $50.00 USD 11x14 $60.00 USD 16x20" $70.00 USD

Enter your color choices

V & P Animal Paintings for SALE!

Child-Inspired Art

I love the innocence and originality of children's drawings.  Only a child could take a simple object and somehow make it adorable and unique.  I decided to use some of my daughter's drawings to create our own original paintings. These paintings are ways to capture my child's unique and precious drawings while giving them a clean and professional look.

If you would like to purchase a V & P Painting:

1.  You may choose one of the already created drawings to be made with your size and color choice:

    Exact drawing of Lion                                                     Example of finished painting

                                                                                                          (Other colors are available) 

                Exact drawing of Zebra                                                    Example of finished painting

                                                                                                                      (Other colors are available) 

Exact drawing of Elephant                                                                  Example of finished painting 

                                                                                                                           (Other colors are available) 

  Exact drawing of Giraffe                           Example of finished painting

                                                                                    (Other colors are available) 

                         Exact drawing of Hippo                                  Example of finished painting

                                                                                                                (Other colors are available)

                                                                   

2.  Choose the size of canvas:     8x10" ($34)       11x14" ($40)      16x20" ($50) 

  

3.  Choose the colors from the provided choices.

Color Options

Please email us before making a purchase.  We can discuss through email your order details.

merrellgirls@gmail.com

Upon receiving your email we will contact you, once we have gathered all the details, we will begin painting your 

V & P Painting!

Size

8x10" $34.00 USD  11x14" $40.00 USD  16x20" $50.00 USD

Animals

Lion   Zebra   Elephant   Giraffe   Hippo

Enter your color choices

 

V & P Sports Paintings for SALE!

Child-Inspired Art

I love the innocence and originality of children's drawings.  Only a child could take a simple object and somehow make it adorable and unique.  I decided to use some of my daughter's drawings to create our own original paintings. These paintings are ways to capture my child's unique and precious drawings while giving them a clean and professional look.

If you would like to purchase a V & P Painting:

1.  You may choose one of the already created drawings to be made with your size and color choices:

Exact drawing of a basketball                                     Example of finished painting

                                                                                                     (Other colors are available)

Exact drawing of a baseball                                                     Example of finished painting

                                                                                                                (Other colors are available)

Exact drawing of a football                                                        Example of finished painting

                                                                                                                  (Other colors are available)

Exact drawing of a soccer ball                                                  Example of finished painting

                                                                                                                 (Other colors are available)

Exact drawing of a hockey puck                                            Example of finished painting

                                                                                                               (Other colors are available)

Exact drawing of a tennis ball                                           Example of finished painting

                                                                                                          (Other colors are available)

Exact drawing of a bowling ball                                     Example of finished painting

                                                                                                        (Other colors are available)

Exact drawing of a billiard ball                                     Example of finished painting

                                                                                                       (Other colors are available)

2.  Choose the size of canvas:     8x10"($30)       11x14"($36)       16x20"($46)

3.  Choose the colors from the provided choices.

Color Options

Please email us before making a purchase.  We can discuss through email your order details.

merrellgirls@gmail.com

Upon receiving your email we will contact you, once we have gathered all the details, we will begin painting your

V & P Painting!

Sizes

8x10 $30.00 USD  11x14 $36.00 USD  16x20" $46.00 USD

Sports

Basketball   Baseball   Football   Soccer Ball   Hockey Puck   Tennis Ball   Bowling Ball   Billiard Ball

Enter your color choices

 

Make up remover and shower cleaner

Update!! Read the blog New Eye Make Up Remover (Even for waterproof mascara!) for a new recipe!


Here are some more ways to save a few dollars!  My sister Piper found some different how to's on Pinterest and shared them with us.  I have only tried these two.

Make up remover:

DIY makeup remover that's even better than the MOST expensive brands. Easy to make, super cheap, and removes even the toughest waterproof makeup. Here's the recipe: 1 cup water; 1.5 TBSP Baby Shampoo Tear-Free; 1/8 TSP olive oil or coconut oil. Shake and save or share with friends!!!

*I have only used the make up remover a couple of times.  It works!  But I wouldn't say it get all of the make up off.  I still had a little mascara left.  I think it could use a little more oil, like 1/4 tsp instead of an 1/8 tsp.  I haven't added any more oil to mine yet, but I'm thinking about it.  Some people suggest using baby oil, I didn't have any so I used the olive oil.  And cotton balls are good for removing the make up.

Shower cleaner:

12 ounces white vinegar

12 ounces liquid, blue Dawn detergent

1.  Heat vinegar in microwave until hot and pour into squirt bottle.

2.  Add the Dawn soap. Put the lid on and gently shake to incorporate.

3.  You now have a powerful cleaning product that will melt soap scum and tub and shower buildup, clean sinks, appliances and just about anything. Just spray it on, scrub, rinse and be amazed. For tough soap scum build-up, spray the mixture on and allow it to sit as long as overnight. Then, scrub and rinse.

*Ok I hate the smell of vinegar, once it is heated it becomes even more awful, so beware!  My container wouldn't hold 12 ounces of both liquids so I used 8 ounces of vinegar and soap  (1 cup vinegar, 1 cup soap).  It seemed to do the job.  The great thing was that it didn't leave any residue after rinsing.  When I make this again I will probably only use 1/2 cup of soap.  The 1 cup seemed to make it too soapy.

I hope this is helpful to you!  Enjoy!

 -Kiley

Update!! Read the blog New Eye Make Up Remover (Even for waterproof mascara!) for a new recipe!

Sloppy Joe

I don't know if your family is picky like mine but I finally found a Sloppy Joe recipe that we all 3 like!  My sister Myka made it for all of us one time and we fell in love with it.  What makes this recipe work so good for us is 1. it's easy, 2. there are no chunks of anything (onions, tomatoes) and 3. we used ground turkey (no gristle).  Here's the recipe:

1 lb.  ground turkey (can use hamburger)

1 cup  ketchup

1 TBS  sugar

1 TBS  vinegar

1 TBS  mustard

a few shakes of onion powder

simmer and eat!

I served it with a Ranch & Bacon Pasta Salad from ALDI, only .99 cents!  The merrellgirls LOVE to shop at ALDI.  We will give more deals at ALDI later.

-piper

Shoe Refashion: Two ways to refashion your shoes

Along with the blessing of my daughter I was also "blessed" with bigger feet!  I don't know if this has happened to anyone else but for me it has been a bit of a problem.  My shoe size changed from a 10 to a 10 1/2, which I cannot find at all!  So, I have been looking for 11's which is also a challenge.  Now you might think that this is a great excuse to get a new wardrobe for your feet but when you are on a tight budget it is not that easy.  So, I was on a mission to get some new cute shoes for under $15.00.  I found some plain black casual shoes at Wal-Mart for $9.97 and bought some supplies to spice them up for $3.00.

There are lots of great tutorials online to make fabric flowers you can use to refashion your shoes.  I used a tutorial from Emily's Little World to make these flowers for my shoes.

Spiral flowers

Supplies

• Shoes
• Coordinating fabric that doesn't fray (For both of my flowers I used black leather I found from JoAnn's, t-shirt/jersey knit fabric works well too.) If you choose a fabric that frays you might want to use a fray block first.
• Hot glue gun and glue
• Scissors
• Felt in a coordinating color cut into a circle (about the size of a quarter for big flowers and a nickel for the small ones)
• Thread and needle (optional)

Step One

To make the spiral flowers, cut one strip about 1 inch wide and whatever length you want.  I made my bigger flower using a strip about 16 inches long.  If your fabric isn't that long, don't worry!  You can use 2 or even 3 separate pieces and glue them together (I will explain how in step 4).  For my smaller flowers, I used strips about 8 inches long.

Step Two

Take your strip of fabric and fold it in half lengthwise.  Hot glue it together making sure to only glue the bottom ends together.  Don't let the glue get on the top part near the fold!

 

Step Three

Cut little slits across the entire length of the now folded strip creating oblong loops.  Make sure you only cut about half way down the strip starting from the folded edge.  Your glued edge should not be cut.

Step Four

Once the whole strip has slits cut, starting at one end roll the strip somewhat tightly into a spiral.  Hot glue the last 1/4-1/2 of an inch into place.  If you think your flower isn't as big as you would like, just take another strip that has already been cut and slit and match up one end with the end you just glued.  Roll the new strip around your flower and glue the end like you did the first strip.

Step Five

Load your flower up with hot glue on the underside and press on your felt circle to keep the flower nice and secure.

*Now you have your cute spiral flower.  At this point you could attach it to a clip for your hair or a pin to put on your bag or keep reading and I will tell you how I attached it to my shoes!

Step Six: Attaching your flowers

You can attach your flower in several different ways:

1.  If you want to detach the flowers at some point it might be good to hot glue your flower to a shoe clip using another circle of fabric to secure it to the clip.

2.  Another option is to hand sew the flower to your shoe.  This can be pretty tough (depending on the type of shoe you have) to get a needle through your shoe.  I would suggest using a thicker needle like an upholstery needle and a thicker, heavy-duty thread like a button and carpet thread.  **I use Button and Carpet thread for most of my crafts.

3.  Good old hot glue is also a great way to keep those flowers in place.  Make sure you use a good amount of glue to attach the felt on the bottom of the flower to your shoe.

I decided I didn't want my flowers going anywhere so I sewed a couple of stitches and then finished using the hot glue.  That's it!

Now go and spice up those boring old shoes!

Homemade cleaners

We like to save money, and what better way to save than by making your own household cleaners.  With little ones at home its nice to know that the cleaners you are using are safe.  I found a website that shares how to make  non-toxic household cleaners and gives you lots of tips.  I know there are tons of websites out there that do the same thing but this one had the cleaners I was looking to make and it used ingredients  I already had at home!  The website is: http://eartheasy.com/live_nontoxic_solutions.htm

I really like the disinfectant recipe and the furniture polish recipe.  I use them all the time.  For the furniture polish, you need to wipe it a couple of times or it could leave a little residue, but other than that its great!  I haven't tried their floor cleaner, I'm a little nervous to put oil on my hardwood floors.  So I just use water and vinegar for my floors and that seems to do the job.

I hope you can find some new cleaning recipes to make your house clean and safe all while saving money!  Who wouldn't love that!

- Kiley

V & P Paintings

As an art teacher I get to see little kid’s drawings everyday and they are so precious!  I love how simple their drawings are but you can still tell what they are, well usually.   It’s funny how as adults, we want to “fix” their drawings, have them add things they forgot or change things that are “wrong”.  I have to say I am also guilty of that.  Of course as the art teacher, I am there to help them learn how to become better drawers and to draw what they actually see.  Well, very quickly in my teaching career I realized that once they grew up and did learn how to draw "correctly" what they saw, they could never really go back to drawing those cute, simple pictures anymore.

So, one day I got the idea to take some of my daughter’s precious drawings and create a painting with them.  I transferred them to my desired size of canvas and painted them.  To enhance my daughter’s original drawing I traced it with puffy paint so it would stand out.

My daughter drew the trees in this one, it hangs over our fire place during the winter months. This one is 24x48".

The flowers are her drawings and this hangs during the Spring and summer months, we still haven't made a fall one yet.  This one is 3 canvases attached together, total measurement is 20x48".

These 5 my daughter drew for one of her cousin's room.  They are each 8x10"

Aren't they so cute, what a great way to decorate your child's room!  We are in the process of getting ready to recreate and sell some of our V & P Paintings.  If you think you are interested, check back soon!  You can also choose to "Follow" our blog by clicking on the "Follow" button at the bottom right of our blog page.  This way you will receive an email whenever we post something new.

-Piper