No art skills here

You would think, after 15 years of dance lessons, I would have some sort of artistic ability to fall back on. I’ve literally got nothing, as I am reminded of every year, as Christmas nears.

The past few years, I have tried to either buy locally-made gifts or make something myself. After all, everybody already has everything they need and most of the things they want.

I decided to paint some bulk product-sized cans to use as a decorative water catch for some potted plants. Who doesn’t want houseplants for Christmas?

Priming and putting the base coat on the cans went better than expected. I intended to start with a black base layer and create a galaxy pattern. There were quite a few tutorial videos on the internet and I was definitely not the first person to put a galaxy pattern on a flower pot.

While I was not the first to do it, I was likely the worst. After trying to paint the galaxy and then trying to fix what I already painted, I aborted the mission. So, that was two hours of my life I’ll never get back.

The can looked like a two year old painted it. Actually, that would have probably looked better. Not only was it not anywhere near nice enough to give as a gift, it wasn’t even suitable for me to keep myself.

I ended up repainting the entire can black and thinking up a new plan. One ended up with a variety of succulents and cacti painted around it, and actually looked cute by the end. The other, I just painted a few stripes on and called it good enough.

The plants looked cute in the cans. At least until they took the “great fall” during travel and flipped upside down on the ground. Luckily, the plants were in a box, so some dirt fell out and the plants shifted around, but I was able to save most of the set-up, with some fancy flipping. I’m just glad everything was kind of contained in the box.

Honestly, half the presents managed to unwrap themselves before they made it to the intended recipients. Oh well. There’s always next year.

I also made coasters for my mom. They were supposed to look like marble slabs, but ended up looking like a galaxy pattern. The irony.

The process of making the coasters went better than painting, at least. It is hard to screw up squeezing some clay, rolling it out, cutting it and baking it. Still, if anyone could have done it, it would have been me.

After that, all I had to do was sand the edges of each coaster and put felt pads on the bottom.

My mom was under the false impression that I had managed to paint the coasters, without them looking like total trash.

Yeah, no. I used colored clay, complete with the glitter already worked in. That was the most my art skills could handle.