Paint by Numbers

It's technically still Thursday on the West Coast!  I DON'T OWE YOU PEOPLE ANY EXPLANATIONS.

All summer my friends and I have been dying to go paint pottery and drink sangria.  This summer has been kind of weird and disjointed for all of us because we all had real things going on--jobs, internships, study abroad trips, and all that other good stuff.  So find a date when we could all get together and do these two things that everyone wanted to participate in was tough.  We never really found the perfect date, but we managed to fit the two events into one pottery-painting-sangria extravaganza.

All Fired Up in Collingswood has these things called "Diva Night" which is basically like a wine and cheese hour with pottery painting.  Since none of us could go to the actual scheduled Diva Night this summer, we opted to go tonight and make our own Diva Night and bring a bottle of sangria and some cheese and crackers with us.

Ahhh yess.  Pre-made sangria, ritz crackers, and sliced colby.
A feast fit for true queens.

They set us up in the party room, since we had called ahead.

Party room, indeed,

We picked out our pieces and got to work!

My friends are pretty focused painters.

I opted to paint a mug, since the last mug I painted with my friends got knocked over while I was dying of strep throat.  I also picked this cute little bowl, because I like bowls.  I don't know why...I just...I just love bowls, OKAY??

Yummyyyy

My friend Brooke always uses really cool techniques when we go to paint pottery.  This time she did this technique where you blow into some watered down paint with a straw, and it creates bubbles.  You place your item on top of the bubbles to transfer, and after they pop this is what it looks like:

Isn't that so cool??

HOOT HOOT.  Cute cute!

Naomi was skeptical about her artistic abilities, but she managed to make this adorable owl plate using a stamp!

Meredith, Amanda, and Naomi were all pleased with their finished products.  Meredith went with stamps and sponges, and Amanda got creative and did some fun color blending.

Meredith clearly has no sympathies for Tori.

Tori agonized for a really long time over what to do with hers.  She worked down to the wire!  In the end she wound up with a really awesome bowl...

Definitely worth the stress!  I think this was one of my favorite pieces from the night.

For the mug, I made it pretty similar to the one that broke.  It's not my best work, but it definitely represents my usual level of artistic talents.

I tried to do something a little more ambitious with the bowl....

I mean, I wouldn't sell it at a craft fair or anything, but I'm pretty proud of it!

After we finished up at All Fired Up, we headed back to Amanda's house for sangria night.

I made this white peach and berry sangria that was so so so delicious.  I am a sucker for white wine.  And white sangria is basically just juice.  Delish!

Amanda and her mom made some red sangria.
Very strong, and very delicious!

Tori wanted to improve my picture.

Fun squiggly wine glasses!!

h0tt1eZ

Those apple slices were deadly!!

We asked Amanda's dad to take a picture of us, and he left us with this hilariously bad photo.  Before we could even ask him to retake it, he was out the door!

He even told us that "it looked great"

We asked Amanda's mom to take another picture for us later in the night.  This one turned out much better!

Except for Meredith.

I'm at the tail end of summer, and I feel pretty good about it.  I was really productive all summer, and I spent time with friends from home and family.  I still have a few more things to look forward to, but if I had to end my summer here I would have no regrets!