Big Dandy Designs Feature, Review, + GIVEAWAY!

Elizabeth of Big Dandy Designs is one my nearest and dearest friends. She is like a sister to me and I'm so excited to share her gorgeous artwork with you today! Read on to learn more about her and her creative process. 

Where are you located and where are you from?

I am originally from Veneta Oregon ( a tiny town you might miss on your way to the coast) and am now settled not too far away in an even tinier town called Alvadore. I tried the city and it just didn't impress me. Too much noise and not enough room for a garden.

{red radishes}

How did you come up with your shop name?

I had been tossing around ideas but as I was listening to my girls compare summer scrapes and bruises one morning I heard my youngest say "look at this big dandy!" I liked how it reflected the coolness and enormity of what she was talking about and thought it fit how I feel about what I do.

How long have you had your shop?

I technically opened in 2008 but really didn't have inventory or a direction. I sold originals exclusively and as my day time job changed I didn't have time to paint regularly. This February bumped up production and now sell archival prints which are far more affordable. 

{Pink Peony}

What inspires you?

I guess you could say I have two main styles I am drawn to:

The whimsy side is inspired by nature. Almost all of my artwork is of what plants and flowers grown in my own yard and garden.

The Arts and Crafts movement is also a very large part of the work I do. My husband and I have remodeled many homes over the years finally building our dream Bungalow home. 

What is your favorite item in your shop?

I guess it changes from season to season. Right now I am in love with the pine cones. They are from a picture I took of a tree on my last trip to Sunriver Oregon. Every painting from nature has a story for me and bring up great memories. 

{Pine Cones}

Do you have any other jobs or hobbies?

If I could, I would do everything! I love gardening, outdoor activities, reading, knitting, crafting, baking, decorating...the list could go on! But, I still have one child in school, a contractor husband whom I help on jobs whenever he needs me and a small hobby farm to keep up with. I'm a busy lady so I have to schedule what I call Big Dandy Days and treat it like a full time job. 

Share an interesting fact about yourself.

Hm, I am obsessed with documentaries and podcasts. Right now I am hooked on Ted Talks and anything to do with food though I indulge in an episode of What Not to Wear every once in a while. 

What do you hope your future holds?

I would love to be in several juried shows each year and, with a bit more practice, selling my work in oils as well. 

{Dahlias}

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Shandell's Review

I may be a tad bit obsessed with Liz's paintings. The first time I realized her artistic ability was when she handed out cards at church on Mother's Day and I saw her initials in the corner. When I asked she casually said that she did make them. I proceeded to tell everyone I came across that morning. If she wasn't going to brag, I was going to do it for her! I currently have a little bit of Big Dandy Designs in nearly every room of my house. I was pretty thrilled to get a few pieces to review for you all. 

{Ginko}

Big Dandy Designs' prints are printed with Epson Ultra Chrome pigment inks on Archival Velvet Fine Art Paper, which looks and feels just like the original watercolor! The paper and ink are made to keep each piece bright and clear for up to 200 years! 

{apple blossoms}

I love the varied styles she creates and the rich contrasts. My favorite thing about all her paintings is that she has such an eye for color, I never tire of looking at her work. 

{fall leaves}

Now that you see for yourself that Liz is immensely talented,  I'd encourage you to head on over to her blog, Bramblefield to read about the goings on at their place. She's crafty, she can cook, garden, and raise sheep! I honestly don't know if there's anything she can't do! Head over to her blog for all sorts of inspiration and the occasional free printable! 

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Giveaway!

Liz is generously offering a $20 shop credit to Big Dandy Designs. This means you get to pick out your favorite piece for your home + she'll send them your way. 

BONUS- if this giveaway reaches 20 entrants she is throwing in a 2nd prize of a $10 shop credit. That means if you share this post and it gets enough entrants (not 20 entries, but 20 individual people entering the giveaway) you could have twice the chances of winning. So please be sure to share this giveaway on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, word of mouth and any other way you see fit to make sure we get to those 20 entrants. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Need help using the Rafflecopter widget? See my post for a tutorial here. 

UPDATE- if you are browsing on an iPad please verify that your comment went through, it should show up immediately. Feel free to message me by email or on Facebook should you have any trouble while I work to fix this issue. Thanks!

This giveaway begins on Friday January 10th, 2014 and will end by Friday January 17th, 12:00am PT. Contest open to US residents only. 

A winner will be chosen at random by Rafflecopter, the winner will be announced shortly after the contest ends and notified by email. . 

Disclosure: I received no compensation for this review. All opinions are my own.This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed, administered by, or associated with, Facebook.  Click for additional disclosures and PR policies.

Can't wait for the giveaway? Check out the current sale going on at Big Dandy Designs…

my new obsession: chalkboard paint

Lately I've been painting quite a few things with chalkboard paint. It started in the kitchen, but I wanted to find ways to use up some of the leftovers, so I started to get a little creative. 

First I wanted to get rid of our unsightly white board on the fridge in the kitchen, but still wanted a spot to write notes without going through tons of paper. I love making lists.

I decided to paint a chalkboard on part of the wall. Technically it's the outside of our pantry. About a month ago I ordered the paint and some chalk ink markers and painted the wall.

Per the instructions on the bottle I painted one coat vertically, then an hour later painted a second coat horizontally. After that, I let it "cure" for 24 hours.

It turned out pretty great. I tried the "frog" tape again. It worked great on the top + bottom, but I have now vowed to never use it on an edge again. It just seeped under the tape and made a mess. It's way easier to just paint the edge free hand and clean any drips as I go.

The next day I had to "season" the chalkboard by rubbing the whole thing with the side of a piece of chalk. Afterwards, I tried out my chalk markers. I bought some lower priced ones on amazon (in the past I had success with the Chalk Ink brand) and was very disappointed.

The marker looked perfect, and works better than chalk because of the texture of my chalkboard, but sadly, it would NOT come off. Fortunately, Amazon let me return them since they didn't work as advertised. And I repainted my chalkboard this past weekend.

{messy lines, "seasoning", chalk ink fail, repainted board}

So, a month later I have a lovely chalkboard in my kitchen. Now I'm hoping to save my pennies for some better chalk markers, but for now I'm using standard chalk. 

{lists}

Afterward I had leftover paint in the tray. I have a really hard time wasting just about anything, so I looked for some things I could spruce up. I painted a magnet on the fridge, some gifts I have yet to give (I'll post on these after Christmas), and tags for presents. 

{brown gift paper + chalkboard paint}

{"short rounds" for our friends}

Anyone have other ideas for chalkboard paint?

it's not easy, being green.

On Saturday morning Ben + I took Malakai to visit my in-laws while we got some work done on our home. Ben's goal for the next few hours was to get the new kitchen faucet in place. Mine was to prime + paint all the patched holes in the dining room and living room.

Ben did some prep work and then had his dad come over to help him remove the old faucet. The removal alone took 3 hours. Something about a corroded washer and the right wrench. The actual work to get the new fixtures in took only 20 minutes!

Meanwhile, I washed the walls, primed the nail holes and patched a few others. These nail holes have been ugly white dots on our walls since we moved in. Something we have just gotten used to. While the primer was drying I scrubbed the baseboards and lower half of the walls in our living room, dining room and hallway.

Then Ben asked that I touch up some spots on an edge where two paint colors meet. Our once lavendar living room became a lovely shade of tan called "fresh linen" the night before we moved in. Because it was such a rush job, there were a few errors here and there. One that really bothered my husband was where the tan bled over to the green on a corner in the hallway.

We had asked the homeowner's to leave all the paint in the garage and they obliged. Over half of the house was painted in a lovely sagey green color that we left because we liked it and it actually matched some of our throw rugs perfectly. There was only 1 quart of this green paint in the garage, from 2002. I mixed it up anyway and began to touch up the corner for Ben. As it went on it looked great. I finished the corner and moved on to the dining room and living room {which is basically one "big" room}.

As I was painting I said to Ben + his dad, "Well this looks perfect, there's no doubt that this is the right color of green!" and continued on my way.

As the touch-ups dried I went to remove the taped edge from the corner and it tore off the tan paint! I mean, we were using some fancy painter's tape which is made specifically not to do this. There was a huge lavender splotch underneath and I panicked because we had nothing leftover of this color. So, I called up Ben's mom to say I was going to be late picking up Kai and ran to the nearby hardware store to pick up a quart of Dutch Boy's Fresh Linen.

When I walked in the door, I  saw this...

Now, both Ben + my father-in-law are colorblind and when I called them out from under the sink to look at this, they were both stunned. We have been living in this house for SIX MONTHS and had no idea until this mishap that these two walls were different shades of green. 

I could list all sorts of explanations as to how we didn't notice until now, but after the work that ensued, I don't have the energy for excuses. This disaster was obviously bigger than that of the small purple spot on the other side of the house. I began checking all my patch work and only 2 walls were this lighter shade of green. This one, and the one on the end of the hall that I had just painted the entire edge from floor to ceiling. 

Needless to say I was distraught. This whole project was supposed to take 3-4 hours so we could pick up Malakai and put him down for a nap, then move on to other smaller projects. 

Oddly enough Ben and I had just been talking about painting this very wall a dark shade of grey some day in the future. So I figured rather than ordering a whole gallon of this dark green we might as well paint it the color we wanted. I grabbed all my paint samples and magazine pages and we chatted about shades of grey. I also tore off a piece of wall where we already had this lovely eye-sore to match the light green for the end of the hallway.

The faucet turned out to be faster than the painting after all and I'm so happy with how it turned out. 

By 2pm we finally picked up Malakai and he crashed immediately. Ben stayed home with him and I ran to Home Depot {my least favorite store of all time, but we had store credit there}. This post is getting long, so I'll spare you the exhausting details of the issues I had with the employees in the paint department. I grabbed a patch repair kit for the gaping hole in the wall, a quart of the custom light green, and a gallon of Glidden "seal" grey.  

When I got home we ate a super late lunch and got right to work. Ben patched the hole while I started cutting in with the dark grey. He rolled the rest of the wall while I painted the edge down the hall for the second time. I tested a small patch and let it start to dry before doing the whole thing. It looked great, so I continued to repaint and then came back in to help Ben with the dining room. 

When we looked at the hall again...it wasn't such a great match after all. 

I wanted to die. We were both so exhausted from the morning project turned entire-weekend life sucker. With our house in disarray and too much toddler-height wet paint, we went to my parents' place for dinner to let things dry until Malakai's bedtime. 

At 9pm we put the 2nd coat on the entire wall, and the first coat on the patched hole. We had also decided to paint the entire end of the hall in the dark green to cover up all the mistakes. I painted that stinkin' edge for the 3rd time that day as I grumbled about having 4 shades of green {including Kai's room} on our walls at that moment. 

Sunday after church we put the 2nd coat on the patched part of the grey wall and I meticulously fixed the  edges {another painter's tape fail} and we called it "good enough". 

{yes, I painted with a toothpick}

Here is the semi-final product of our new dining room wall {awaiting decor of course}. 

I really love how it turned out {despite my worries the entire time that it somehow looked purple}. My favorite part is how the red + black decor contrast with it. I can't wait to put something bold and red up on the wall!

Now...on to more projects in preparation for our housewarming in T-minus 5 days!