Outdoor mural at friend's farm

It was an exciting start to June/last month.  After being happy and satisfied with how the mural in our bedroom turned out, I decided to advertise my mural painting services within the neighborhood's group email.  And lucky enough, a friend of ours that owns a farm nearby decided to hire me!

It was definitely a learning process, from consulting to picking out paint, and also trying to figure out pricing!  So as of right now, we are going with $5/sqft.  And yes, who knew that mural artist actually charge by square footage!  I did actually give them a tad of a discount because there was going to be a lot of white space in this mural.  And of course, there was also the "friend discount".  I definitely spent a lot more time than what I had planned on it.  Mostly because the wall was not all flat as you will see in a bit in the photos. Nonetheless, I'm so happy that the mural turned out well and that Beth and Mitch are so happy with it! :-)

Beth said she wanted bright colors and the flowers to be native ones.  And I actually found color inspirations in her garden:

The reds and yellows:

The blues:

Here it is!

I was a bit concerned seeing these colors but once I got the sample paint, it didn't look so bad thankfully:

Some practicing:

More practicing.  These ferns are a tough one!

These colors are definitely bright!

It ended up being 23ft by 9 ft:

But technically, with the over 1 feet of foundation on one side, it was about 10ft on a ladder!

Here goes!!

As you can tell now, the wall is not all flat, so it took a lot longer to get into these little nooks. And trying to get straight lines was also a challenge!

I wasn't so sure about how the top of these coneflowers looked at first.  But I'm glad it was fine in the end:

It actually took me an entire day to sketch on the wall so by now, this is end of Day 2:

Here is end of Day 3:

Saturday/Day 4 was a short day as there was potential rain in the afternoon.  So I could not risk having my paint "melt" on the wall!

By Sunday, it's end of Day 5:

This fern is taking forever!! 

I did have Charlie come out and help me hold the ladder.  It's been so crazy windy!!

The cat did occasionally keep me company too:

Although, it did use me as a scratching post once.  Ouch! Not nice - haha! Thankfully I had my "paint jeans" on and what's a few more scratches and paint on it :-D

The mural is coming along! :-)

Finally done with the fern!! And adding some of the insects.  You can see part of the butterfly to the top left of the photo:

One of the bees in pencil:

And after, with paint.  It turned out pretty well! I'm so happy :-)

By Day 6:

The wings of this dragonfly took a while too, but it turned out so well.  Yay! Especially when the dragonfly was a symbolic insect to Beth.  Phew, the pressure was definitely on!

Sunset on the final day:

Ta da!!

The ferns are supposed to be 2-tone, based on the final sketch, but I liked just having the lighter color against the darker stems.  And thankfully Beth agreed. It would have been pretty painstaking to go through that one particular fern again.  Ha ha!

Crazy to think I started with this...

And by the time Beth and Mitch returned from their family vacation, I was so happy to be able to give them this!

I've yet to sign the mural but while I've just decided on a business name, this is a good photo to end with :-)

Let's hope for some more mural work.  It's been really quiet as in no other emails/request, so I'm thinking I might have to visit some businesses in the nearby towns.  I better bring my "A" game!

Oh, and forgot to mention, all those hours "working" (42 hours and 5 minutes to be exact) and having to handle 2 ladders, paint, glaze, and what not, I managed to lose about 5lbs.  Woohoo... bonus! LOL!!

Boys' dental/orthodontist update

Looks like summer is the time for dental appointments! Graham had no issues during his cleaning:

Charlie on the other hand, did need some extra cleaning:

We definitely need to cut down on those sweets - chocolates, ice-cream, milk tea with tapioca/boba, the list goes on and on!

Both boys also had appointments at their orthodontist.  Graham is on his last set of Invisalign and should be able to move to retainers later in November.  He is so excited!  And Charlie actually does get to move forward to retainers in a few weeks.  His teeth were not severely crooked but did need some help:

After 1.5 years...

Nice and straight!

This is like the "torture device" to keep his lips apart to take photos. Ha ha!

Charlie had all his little nubbies taken off from the surface of some teeth.  They were put on to support the Invisalign but now that he is moving to retainers, those nubbies are no longer needed. He said it felt so odd not having any more bumps on his teeth.  What an investment with these two boys but so worth it! These boys are definitely so lucky and if they only knew that :-P

Recent happenings

Seems like it's been forever since I've updated my blog.  I've only had 6 postings so far in June! And today is literally the last day in June - assuming I get this posting submitted within the next 15 minutes.  Ha ha!

Today is also my late mom's birthday.  Here's a photo of my sister, mom in the middle, and me to the right:

I'm not even sure when this photo was taken.  Most likely when we were still in college. I'm guessing that's probably when she visited us for the very first time in Arizona, in 1995 perhaps??

The reason I've haven't had a chance to update my blog recently is because of all these new projects.  I had my first commissioned mural painting!  Here's the draft. I will post about it more later on!

By the way, forgot to show the tubing that went into our wood-burning chimney.  Thankfully it's a lifetime guarantee as it cost a lot more than we wanted to deal with:

My ginger plant is finally growing in the raised garden bed!

Which also reminds me, my potato plants are actually wilting now, as well as the garlic.  

I guess I should start digging those up soon to see if there's actually anything to harvest?! Will definitely keep you posted on that!

And here's our first baby cucumber of the season:

And I actually forgot to eat it and now it' will have to go into the compost bin.  Hopefully we'll get a few more!

Oh, we forgot to put more salt into our water-softener in the garage earlier in the month (yes, been very forgetful lately!).  The salt bin was literally empty! It was no wonder that the showers didn't feel the same/as soapy as it normally would:

Thankfully with a click of a button, we were able to reset everything on the machine.  Phew... didn't need another expense!

Finally saw and heard some cicadas this month also.  It was suppose to be an epic event but thankfully, there was really nothing too much in our neighborhood.  I did spot some about 30 minutes away in another suburb:

They are not very pretty looking! And you can hear them too. Yikes!

It almost sounds like a constant alarm in the background.

Summer also means summer haircuts!  I'm so glad our old clippers conked out so I was able to purchase new clippers that are cordless.  So much easier:

Charlie likes his hair a tad longer while Graham still likes his buzzed at a #2 :-)

Still so much fishing for these boys. I believe Charlie caught a carp here:

Unfortunately, he actually needs to "take care of it" and not throw it back in the lake because it's an invasive species. I don't even want to know where it went. Poor fish!

And oh, I also started selling some plants recently at my friend's market. It's every Saturday from 9am to 12pm.  So far so good.  Here's a quick preview of what a kokedama looks like:

Anyhow, been busy working on a new business name, logo, Instagram, website,... the works!! And I also have a job interview coming up on Wednesday for an assistant golf coach position.  It's at a park district about 40 minutes away.  So yeah, it's been a really busy month!  But all good.  Really excited about all these new opportunities and challenges.  Wish me luck! :-)

Happy Birthday to Bobby!

A little more than a week after Graham's birthday and it's Bobby's birthday!  Should we mention how old he is?? Okay, I'll spare him this time :-)

I actually have an upcoming project so we had to run an errand after lunch.  Boys are relaxing while waiting for Momma to come out of the store. Ha!

After the store, we decided to hang out at the skate park for a bit.  Daddy trying out the scooter on the ramp!

Just glad everyone has their helmet on:

Momma trying to look cool on the skateboard.  I'm not sure if I'm nailing the look.  Ha ha!!

Trying out Graham's Ripstick:

Graham makes it look so easy!

I'm glad the scooter still gets some action with Charlie:

Time for a snack and refreshments!

Once we get home, I hang the new wreath that we purchased while running our errands earlier.  Love it!

Thankfully it's no quite covering our hummingbird door-knocker!

We stopped by the store to get Bobby his birthday gift before coming home.  So we didn't really get a chance to wrap it:  

3... 2... 1... Ta da!!!

It's a new espresso machine!  I'm not sure who is more excited though - Graham or Bobby.   Ha ha!

Graham has been making a lot of Bobby's espresso (on the stovetop) and looks like this will be his new "toy".  He's been using the the new machine to froth milk and make hot chocolate.  And Graham says,  "Best hot chocolate ever!" 😄

For dinner, we make pasta with chicken and garlic butter sauce.  Yum!!

We decided to go to the driving range the next day instead as everyone got pretty tired after all the errands from the day before:

It's been a while so make sure everyone warms up properly!

Omg, remind me not to wear these pants again in public. Too floral.  Ha ha!

One last gift - from Bobby's mom. Too cute!

Perfect fit :-D

By the way, I was doing looking elsewhere for a second the other day and when I looked up from my chair, Charlie totally imitated Bobby.  I had to take a photo - how funny is this!

I'm so glad Bobby is still up to being dragged along and picking up used furniture with me.  Of course I have to repay his duties in ice-cream.  Not helping the waistline, honey!!

For $20, this hutch is quite the steal!  At least now Charlie and Graham's fishing stuff has a home:

Come to think of it, perhaps getting through this log pile will help the waistline!!

A storm blew over a couple of our neighbor's trees and while the guys were working, we managed to convince them to stash the logs over in our yard.  We should have plenty of wood for next winter - as long as we can figure out how to split them!!  And also once our chimney is fixed.  Here's Step 1 out of 2, of the repairs that needs to be done:

Looks like more meals at home to pay for all these repairs!  I have to say, Bobby is improving :-D

Happy Birthday, honey!!  We love you lots!! XOX