Hand painted coasters

I feel homemade gifts are always the best. They carry a certain charm and, in my opinion, are better than the gift cards that people always resort to. Here is a great last-minute gift idea...monogrammed coasters! These "coasters" were purchased at a local hardware store in the tile department. Then with black acrylic paint, I monogrammed each tile. I always have trouble making lettering look exactly the same, so I did a little font research and created "B" in four different ways! I'm not sure if I need to put a clear coat on top to extend the life of the paint...I like the matte, rustic look so I skipped it.

Painting coquito bottles

Every year around Christmas, we make a batch or two of coquito, a Puerto Rican version of spiked egg nog. The Puerto Rican tradition is to gift hand-painted bottles full of coquito, then the following year they return the empty painted bottle for a refill.  I painted a bunch back in 2012, but never got all of them filled. My wife was too attached to a few of them and didn't want to give them away!

Painting on a glass bottle is an interesting challenge. We invited some friends over this year to paint their own bottles. The problem is that we kept drinking the coquito! The skull is the one I created this year for my daughter...not necessarily for coquito. The other ones are bottles I painted two years ago.

This year's bottle painting

Christmas cards (or Holiday cards!)

I got together with my Artist Way group to make Christmas cards. They really go all out with materials and supplies, because they love to experiment with different processes and multimedia. I'm more of a purist myself but it's good to get out of my comfort zone once in a while. Here are some Christmas cards that I created. I actually started with a sheet of watercolor paper that someone else had started with a blue and green wash. She said it didn't turn out like she wanted, but I thought it would be perfect for a background (and I hated for it to go to waste). Then I added more paint and stamped them. The first two are my favorite...

  For this last set of cards I really went out of my comfort zone with stamps and glitter! (It doesn't show up well in my photos though)

Although I call them Christmas cards, only this second to last one says Christmas, so I suppose "holiday cards" is a more appropriate title...good for EVERY occasion!