Fri-Yay Fav Day

Hey guys, good morning! It's my morning. I slept in today because it's Friday. So I'm starting a new thing and we're gonna call it Friday Fave Day, and I'm gonna jump on with you guys on Friday mornings morning my time and share with you my 5 favorite things of the week. So this is something new that we're gonna start doing. You guys may have seen yesterday I hired my daughter Kylie, who's 16, to come and help me clean my office. So I thought I would show you guys kind of the progress that we made so far. Thank God I have a daughter who is such a neat freak and as OCD as she is, because she, yeah, she helped a ton yesterday. Like all the stuff that I'm like always want to get done and I'm like, just put it off, just put it off, just put it off, I don't have time for it. She came in and just organized all of that. So I'm gonna give you guys— let me see if I can pull you off here and give you— it's not all done yet. There's still a lot of my office that's a mess. But first of all, there's a clean floor, so progress is awesome. So this is my front office. I did not paint that painting, by the way, but it is one of my favorite things that I have hanging in my house because I love Paris. Same with the one on the other side— my two Paris paintings. But if you saw the pictures yesterday, there were piles and piles on the floor over here. And then my little corner. This is pretty clean, but that— I bought a new camera. That's my, um, that's my bag of new camera stuff that I have to learn. But look, oh, my new barn doors! Remember I told you guys Cory was going to put those up for me? They're not painted yet, but they are up, so I'm super excited about that. And then my little studio where you guys always see me, but If you paint with me a lot, you've seen what a mess this is, hence my sticker on my cup. But this is like really super clean for me. And then we've got all my paints organized over here. But check this out. Also underneath here was a mess. So she came in and she— I was like, I need your help, I'll pay you well. And she came in and she said, I'm disgusted with you. But they're over here. That's our last tub of stuff we have to organize. But, um, all there— that was all stuff all over the floor over here, all different color or boxes of paints that needed to be condensed. Check this out, my new rolly cart. Well, I've had the cart for a while, newly organized. So all my thick acrylic tube paints are up here, all my paint pens. This will be put in something nicer. That's left over from when I did paint nights. So all my like extra art supplies, and then look at this beautiful little rainbow of paints down here, and then my 8-ounce bottles down here. So we're making progress. I got my shelf all cleaned up here. This is my, my little motivational wall with my little Bob Ross and my Tribe Sisters. Don't forget to surround yourself with positive words. And then we have this side. That is my piles and piles of workspace. And like she said, hot mess. She tried to come over here and start moving my papers around, and I was like, oh no, no, you can't touch that. I'm like, that, that all makes sense to me, and I know exactly where everything is. So yeah, she had to leave that alone, but we're gonna hopefully work on that today. And then all those cabinets— did you guys see those? I think I may have flipped around too fast. Corey built me this Someone was asking yesterday. Cory built me all my entire office, but he built this desk area for me. But all these drawers and cabinets are filled with non-art supplies of randomness, and our goal today is to get all of those out and make this solely my art studio so that all my lettering stuff is in one place, and all my paints are in one place, and all my glass art is in one place. So those are my goals. All right, so let me move this stuff back over really quick. Trying to— why did that— oh, I had to turn the other way. I'm like, that fit in here. Me trying to be organized. Okay, is that good? Oh yes, we are purging like crazy right now. We are building on a deck to the back of our house, so we have a big dumpster in the front to throw all the old decking away and all the old siding. So we're using that time to go through the house and get rid of everything that we don't need, and we're about halfway through the house, but it feels good to get rid of stuff. Okay, so if you hopped on late, I'm doing my fave 5 today, and we're gonna start— you guys hear me talk about it all the time, but we're gonna start with my devotional. Um, This is Jesus Calling. It's the one that I use all the time when I share with you guys, and I haven't read it this morning yet, so I'm going to do it with you guys on here. So we're going to start with a devotional, and if you don't have this yet and you want it or something similar, what I actually put in the links is going to take you to my Amazon store, and it's a flip calendar for you to set on your counter. Because I think I wish I had one in my office. So I'm probably gonna order one to put in my office instead of it being— excuse me— another book that I move around all the time. So go back to May 6th if you have this, if you haven't read it yet, because it's all about our mental checklists and that we're always gonna have— we're always gonna have a checklist. We're never gonna get done with it all. And to not live in trying to find peace in finishing our checklist, but living in peace with him, and that he's going to show us the right things to do at the right time. Um, I loved that one. So today is May 8th. Says, do not long for the absence of problems in your life. That is an unrealistic goal, since in this world you will have trouble. You have an eternity of problem-free living reserved for you in heaven. Rejoice in that inheritance which no one can take away from you, but do not seek your heaven on earth. Begin each day anticipating problems, asking me to equip you for whatever difficulties you encounter. The best equipping is my living presence, my hand that never lets go of yours. Discuss everything with me. Take a light-hearted view of trouble, seeing it as a challenge that you and I together can handle. Remember that I am on your side and I have overcome the world. That's a good one. And I love that, you know, he wants us to bring everything to him. And I remember when I was younger, I used to be like, well, God doesn't care about that. That's like a small thing. Like, he, he wants the big prayers. And that's not true. He wants all the prayers. He wants, he wants to be your friend and and he wants you to talk to him throughout the day, all the time, a continual conversation that never ends. And I remember thinking I used to have to just like make it like a moment, like I had to have my long, like a 30-minute devotional time, and if I didn't do that, then I, you know, messed up for the day. Well, that's so not true, and you know, that doesn't happen every day. Especially when you're a mom of 3 and life is happening. That doesn't always happen, but he just wants us to stay in continual communion with him. He wants us to continually talk to him. And I remember, um, I can't remember if it was from, um, I think it was a Bible study that I did, and it was about friendship, and it was about like, who's that person that you call when you have a problem? Or when you have something to celebrate. And it was just a reminder that before we pick up the phone to call our friend to de-stress or to vent or whatever it may be, we need to bring it to him first. He's waiting for us to talk to him and then go to— go talk to your friends about it. Like, vent to your friends and go through it with your friends, but he's waiting for you to bring your problems to him. And he's that friend that is never going to leave your side, that is never going to be anywhere other than next to you, guiding you through. So anyways, that's the devotional for today. That's in the flip one that you can put on your counter, is the link that it will take you to. But when you go to it, it'll take you to Amazon, it'll take you to my store. Um, the one, the leather-bound one that I have in my store, um, is unavailable right now. So hopefully we'll get that back in stock soon, but it'll at least take you to it and you know what devotional, um, it is that I use. I gotta go to my list here. Let's see. Oh, can I tell you something just totally random that I'm really excited about? It has nothing to do with my fave 5, but, um, last night we— so you guys know I'm a Chiefs fan, and they just released their schedule yesterday, and I'm so excited because we know the first game that we're going to and we got our room reserved right across the street from the stadium, which is a huge deal because those sell out super fast. And so anyways, super excited. I just wanted to share my happiness with you. Okay, so the next thing I wanted to share with you guys was my Spotify playlist that I use at paint nights. So some of you may teach paint nights. I know we're getting slowly back to the point where that can start happening again, but I don't know about you guys, but I love to listen to music while I'm painting. So this is just a really, really fun playlist. I didn't actually make it. It's a Spotify playlist. If you don't have Spotify, it's free. Just download the app on your phone. You can download it on your computer. I have it on my computer and my phone, so I have music— I always have music on. But it's Songs to Sing in the Shower is the playlist, and you can search it, or my links will take you directly to that, and then you can save it in your Spotify account. If you don't have Spotify, it's really awesome, and I'll just show you on here. Hopefully you can— so you just have all these playlists, and this is the Songs to Sing in the Shower, but it's like a mix of '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, like all your favorite songs, and and it's just like happy, good music to have on. So what do you guys like to paint to? What's your favorite kind of music? Sherry says she loves Spotify. It's the best. Now I do— I did the paid version because I was using it at paint nights and I didn't want to have commercials in between. So if the commercials annoy you, you can do the paid version for $9.99 a month, but you don't have to. You can do the free version, and I think like every 2 songs a commercial comes on. Sorry, I'm scrolling back up to this question. Judy said, did you paint the picture of the bicycle with the flowers? Oops. That's the painting from Kirkland she's wanted. It's actually not from Kirkland's. That's my original. It may look similar to something they have, but actually this is and that's on my list of things. That's part of my Painting of the Month Club. It's the new membership that I just started, so you can learn to paint your own if you're interested in that, and I'll be sharing more about that in a second. Let's see. Oh, so the next thing is— let me move my stuff around here. Melanie says, I have groups that paint with the '80s or Disney. '80s has always been my go-to. I love '80s. '80s is fun to paint to. Before I had Spotify, I did Pandora, and you can type in '80s on Pandora and they have a just fabulous playlist of '80s music. So the next thing is this pen set. This is Pentelic Illustration Pens. It If you didn't see me use them earlier this week, that's going to be the next thing, um, that we'll be talking about because this is something— Mother's Day is this weekend, and even if you have to mail it and it's late, I'm sure your mom would appreciate getting it. Or maybe she lives local and you can take it to her. But I taught you guys how to do this painting the other day, so the link to this painting is in the tutorials. or in the tutorials. Can you tell what I'm used to saying all the time? It's in the links that are going to be sent to you. Yeah, I think we're slowly starting to get some paint back in. Hopefully— I know DecoArt was closed for a time being. Hopefully they're open back up and making more paint. I know a lot of women were saying wherever they lived, Hobby Lobby was back open and they were able to go in and get some DecoArt paint, so they were super excited. So we're getting there. We're getting close. I know though, all the sets I had in my Amazon store sold out right now. Susan said Jerry's Artarama. Yeah, they're awesome. Jerry's Artarama is where I get my— actually, this size canvas. A lot of people ask me where I get my, my 18 by 18 size. I get these from Jerry's Artarama, and they're super affordable. I I think they come a little like close to like $2 a canvas or something like that. So anyways, the pen set. The pen set is what I used to do this, and I show you guys step by step. We're kind of combining two of my faves into one. I show you step by step how to do this. You'll have the link to that video. And then I also— well, I thought I had it the right way. This is what happens when you have so many books— mixed media pads. And then this is another piece of art that I did with those pens. So this one was like the fine pens, the ones that say like 0.5 or 0.05. They're really skinny, and so they make those really fine, fine lines that you see on here. And then this one was done with the brush pen in that set. I did the entire thing in the brush pen, but it is a set of, I believe, 4. Um, I can never remember if it's 4 or 5 and I'm missing one in my hand. Let me look on here really quick. And then I can tell you. So the link to this is in my Amazon store, and they do have them in stock. I checked last night. It is a 5-piece, so it's a 5-piece set for $10, and they're amazing, and they're waterproof. So super— so yeah, it's a 5-piece set for $10, but you can use them for writing, you can use them in art, My next favorite thing was the tutorial for you guys for this. So if you haven't done this yet, by the way, those of you that have, they are so, so pretty. You guys are doing such an awesome job, and I love it because I did not give you a template for this, but I taught you how to make a mason jar with super easy step-by-step instructions that you're gonna be able to use that, that skill alone, and in multiple paintings. So once you learn how to paint a mason jar— I mean, they're so popular, you can do so many things with a mason jar. Um, you could do 3 in a row, you know, whatever you want. But once you learn how to do them, then you're like, oh, this is so easy, I didn't know I could do that. So the video is going to show you that. I did them filled with spring flowers, but you could do whatever you wanted to. But this is going to make an awesome gift for Mother's Day. It's a free tutorial. You get to watch everything start to finish. I show you how to do that. So the link right back to this video. It was so fun to do too. I think I forgot how much I miss— because I was— I used to draw before I painted. Well, I mean, I guess I did both, but I did a lot of drawing, and I love the combination of painting and drawing in one. Yeah, let me know if you guys did them. There is a post in our free group for for you to go and post your work. And so I've been scrolling in and looking at all of them and they're so pretty, which brings me to what the membership is. Because if you've missed it, it's brand new. I think we've been open maybe a week and a half. Maybe it's been 2 weeks. I don't remember, but it's brand new. So the new membership is called the Painting of the Month Club, and this is the painting for May. You have until May 20th to sign up to get access to this painting, the template, all the materials. And the thing I love about the Painting of the Month Club is that it's all in one spot for you. When you check out, you will be creating a login and a password, and then it will take you— you're gonna have your own membership site. And then when you log in, you're gonna see May Spring Bicycle of the Month, and then next month you'll see June. I'm not telling you what that is. It's a surprise. You'll find out on May 20th what is going to be the June painting of the month. And so each month, you'll— when you log in, you'll see your painting of the month. And you have lifetime access to these. You— it's only $20 a month to get this, and then you have lifetime access. So even if you cancel, which a lot of people say, well, is there a commitment? There's not. So if you just know you want to do this painting, you can sign up for $20, and if you don't like next month, you can cancel. So you don't have to stay in, but when you do sign up, the month that you pay for, or the months that you pay for, you have access to forever. So every time you log back into your account, those are still going to be there for you to go back to whenever you want. So, um, it's something new I created out of, you know, a lot of the emails that I was getting from people were like, I love your Inner Tribe, which is my other membership, but it's $47 a month, and with everything going on right now, I can't swing that. I wish I could still paint with you. And I thought this was the perfect solution. And this membership, these are exclusive paintings, so you can't get them anywhere else. They're my designs. There are things that I have taught previously, but I've never put back up for sale again. So I decided to save all of these exclusive paintings and save them for the Painting of the Month Club. So that's the only way that you can purchase them and the only way that you can get them for only $20, because my individual tutorials sell on the website for $37. So it's a really, really good deal, and you get exclusive paintings that you can't get anywhere else. What else was I going to show you guys? Oh, I know, this is just kind of random. Those were my 5 favorite things. But check this out. This is— I was playing around with new products. So I'm hoping to create a store where you can buy some of my art on different things. So I'm working with a company right now and I'm ordering some samples of stuff. So this is the first thing that I got and I'm really, really excited about it. So I wanted to try it out with the Spring Bicycle because it's such a popular painting right now. Trying to do this without glare. What do you guys think? Can you see that? So it's a— this is for an iPhone 11 Pro Max, whatever it's called. But I love these cases. It's really similar to the one that I had on my phone. So it's just this like rubbery plastic edging. But if you guys like these, how fun is this? This is what they look like. It fits perfect. It snaps on. I love it. It's not bulky because I was worried because you— I don't know how many— I order a lot of phone cases because I like to switch them out all the time, but some of them are bulky. This has like a matte finish to it, but I love how thin it is. So if that is something you guys would like to be able to see and purchase, I will start creating these. And I don't know— so don't be mad if you have a Samsung. I'm sorry, I don't know if they have those. I know they have this phone case. Look how cool that is, like next to the painting. It's like identical. I love it. But yeah, so I'm gonna go back through with some of my popular paintings and start putting them on products that you guys can purchase, and I'm so excited about that. That's so fun to me. And then some of the other— you guys can tell me what you think— some of the other things that I can do are put them on pillows. So some of them won't look good on pillows, but some of them will. Like, I even think the spring bicycle would be like a really cute, pretty spring pillow to have on your couch or maybe on your patio. So like I said, we're building a new deck, so I'm gonna have two sectionals, one on the bottom floor and one on the top, and I'm gonna need some cute pillows. So I I'm thinking I'm gonna take some of my own artwork and put it on some pillows to have out there. And I can also do— I don't know how, I don't know what phones they have them for. I'll have to go back and look and let you guys— give you an update on that. But I ordered a pillow sample. I haven't gotten it yet. And I ordered— did I remove that? Well, I'll just show you with this. Basically, They have 12 by— this is an original, but they have the 12 by 12 gallery-wrapped canvases, which is this size, and they have a 14 by 14. I can't remember which one I ordered, but where they're printed, those two pieces of art I showed you on my wall, just like what you would go buy at Hobby Lobby or Michaels or Kirkland's, art that is, you know, not an original piece, but my original screen printed on canvas. So a gallery wrapped canvas, and I did one of my abstract birds as a test. So when that comes in, I'll come back on and show you guys that and see what you think. So just a few different items that I think would be cute in the store, and then hopefully they come out with some new things. and then what do you guys think about t-shirts? I have t-shirts for my inner tribe sisters. We have tribe sisters t-shirts, but I started thinking about maybe designing some t-shirts that are just about painting, or maybe have a fun Bob Ross quote on them, or something like that, to see if you guys would like t-shirts. And then, so I talked to my friend this week. So she came over to see my new deck the other night, and then we were talking about all the stuff I was doing, and I was saying how I wanted to do aprons because you guys have been begging me for aprons forever, and I just do not have the time to like personally like make them, like cut out the vinyl, put it on, do the heat press. Like I do not have time for that at all. But I've had a really, really hard time sourcing it and trying to find someone that can do it for me and make it look as good as I want it to look. But anyways, I was talking to my friend Stacy the other day and I had no idea she could do this. I was like, you can screen print stuff? I didn't— how did I not know this? But so here's what I'm thinking. I'm gonna have one for Tribe Sisters, which again is my membership, and it's gonna have our Tribe Sisters logo on it. But these are— let me show you this one. This is my original logo from when I started my business 6 years ago. I know it's backwards, but this was a hand-sketched design that I turned into a logo, and it's been my staple logo ever since then. So this is what all my aprons look like when I did paint nights. So what do you guys think? Would you want an apron, and would you want it to be the original logo, or would you want it to be— I have anything with my other one on it? Do I have it on my, my cup? No, I don't. Or, you know, the turquoise, like, watermark one that says The Social Easel Online Paint Studio. We can do either one, and And what I may do, if it's not hard, is give you multiple options. So she said she can create a page for me in her store that will have my aprons. So again, we're trying to— these I ordered. I know I like them, what I use for my paint nights. So I think we're gonna order some of these and then test out a couple companies with the screen prints and get some samples. So it's like a whole process. This doesn't— it doesn't happen overnight, but we're working on all the details of that, and she's gonna help me get a store set up so you guys can order your own Social Easel aprons. So yeah, let me know which logo you like better, the original one, or if you'd rather it be the turquoise that you see on everything. It's my watermark on all my paintings, the Social Easel Online Paint Studio. Studio, which is a turquoise little bubble. So those are some new things that I'm working on. Oh, Gloria said cups too. You know, Stacy could do the cups as long as she doesn't mind shipping, because I'm like, if you can handle it, get ready, because I think these ladies are gonna want some stuff. So yeah, let me know. Cups would be fun. I love cups, obviously. I have— I'm like a collector of cups. And stickers. I do have stickers, by the way, as well. But yeah, mugs. Oh, I have mugs that say The Social Easel. Most of them were designed for my Inner Tribe, but I can easily make— that was the other thing I ordered was a coffee mug, and I can either put my art on the coffee mug or I can put the logo on the coffee mug. So there's really like endless possibilities once I jump into this and start like getting some products going. So that's a fun new thing that I'm working on. And one of my favorite mugs— they have two different kinds. They have just the glossy mug, and then they have those Magic Mugs. Have you seen those where when it's cold it's black, and then when you heat— when it has hot coffee in it or whatever, it's hot, then the color, the picture, the image shows up on the coffee mug? So stay tuned for that. We're, we're working on it. Let me know what you guys thought about this. If you like the Happy Fri-yay Fave Day, so we're gonna do this every Friday and I'm gonna share some different things with you. For those of you that are new to me, or maybe you're not new and you just didn't even know I had this, we have a blog post as well. So the blog post is filled with with so much information, and I think people just don't know about it yet. And you can go back and search multiple ones, but this last week is a motivational one. Next week is going to be on color mixing. There's ones on each one of the paintbrushes. So they're all different. They're about different things, and we're going to keep— we're going to like work through our calendar of what we have coming up. With the blog post. But if you are new to painting and you want to get painting and you don't know where to start, the blog post is a great place to start because it will— inside the blog post, it's going to tell you all the steps. It's going to have links to the products that you need so you don't have to go trying to figure that out on your own. It's going to have links to the videos that I teach you in, so you can just go through the blog and pick what you're most interested in. So it's a great resource to go back to. Yeah, so I'm gonna be going through, and if you guys are excited about this, and I'm gonna start working on it behind the scenes and ordering some samples. But if you missed it, this is the first sample that I got. I feel like the light is making that so bright. But I love, like, how bright those colors are, how good the ink is on it. So I was super, super happy with the quality of it. So phone cases, yes, for sure. And I'm gonna start working on that, so stay tuned. Maybe by next Friday I'll even have some stuff up that you can order, if I can be that productive this week. So we'll see. Thank you guys so much. Let me know if you want to keep doing this on Friday. If you have fun doing these. It was fun to just hang out and talk with you for a little bit. So I'm gonna jump off, and I will see you guys next week. Happy Mother's Day to all of you guys too. Happy Mother's Day, everyone. Have an awesome, awesome weekend. Bye.