Paint by Numbers

I was trying to figure out what to do for our anniversary this year.  And so I thought, what about a Paint-by-number project?! It seems to be the rage these days.  Well... so here we go.  I ordered it as part of our Christmas gift so Bobby wouldn't be suspicious. Not sure if he actually did find out that I was working on it.  I had been somewhat hiding it in the she-shed.

So many numbers!!!  I decided to start with the darker colors first, as you can see to the top left corner of the canvas.  This was just a couple of days before Christmas:

And then 2 days prior to our anniversary (on Jan 4):

I finally finished by the evening of Jan 5th!  I did spend a lot of time on it the past 2 days before the anniversary.  The boys were back in school so I did have some quiet time in the she-shed:

It looks pretty amazing from afar!  But from up close, almost eerie because I don't really have any eye balls.  Hmmm....

See what I mean?  There was a sheet of all the numbers for the painting.  The numbers are quite small and also lots of them were overlapped too so that made it difficult sometimes.  And it doesn't help when my long-sightedness is getting worse! My bifocal contact lens in one eye was making it quite tricky to focus on all these little numbers. Ha! 

I was hiding all the evidence in this metal drawer:

Here was my "Paint Station" in the she-shed, among all the tools and "stuff".  I'm glad I had my stool and even had a little portable heater because it did get so cold outside!  

By the way, here is the original photo.  I do love how those fall colors shine through in the background.  And at this very moment, I was trying not to fall off the swing when our photographer Andy told us to try and kiss each other. LOL!!!

So unless the boys are interested and want to do another Paint-by-number project together, this might be a one and done.  Maybe it seemed just a bit tiring as I was also trying to get it done on time/by the anniversary.  But then again, I figured if I wasn't done, I could just finish it at a leisurely pace and have it ready as a gift for our anniversary the following year :-D

In any case, I do love this photo.  It brings back memories of when Bobby and I got married at the park nearby where this photo was taken.  We had our wedding photographer come out to the same spot in Moorestown, NJ 8 years after our wedding to take photos of us and the boys. Hopefully someday we will be able to do the same again. Look how cute the boys were then! 

Nov 9, 2015

Graham and Charlie were only 5 and 3 years old respectively in this photo.  So adorable! And Bobby and I were so young then. And even younger when we first tied the knot on Jan 6, 2007:

Awwww... we were so young (although I guess 30 years old back then was not so young to just be married).  Gosh, have we aged since then.  Ha ha!!!  I'm going to blame the kids for that, and also Bobby! ;-P