Painted Pottery Christmas Trees

 

Way back in Feb...before the world became crazy - Erin and I took the girls to one of those cute little pottery painting places.  It's the first time the girls and I had done anything like it, and I blogged about it back earlier this year.  So, fast forward to October when the store started emailing out about Christmas merchandise and Erin and I immediately knew we had a holiday project on the books.  She and I both wanted to paint one of these vintage pottery trees and I picked two smaller items for the girls to paint too.

You guys - these trees are probably 12, maybe 15 inches tall - they took us THREE days to paint.  Of course the girls were done with their trees in an hour and moved onto other projects...Erin and I were still working on our ribbons.  LOL!

Each piece needs three coats of pain to get full coverage and bright colors that pop once they go through the kiln.  We debated how to start and both decided to paint the ribbons first, then the ornaments and finally the green parts of the tree...oh, and also the bases!  Those went fast though.

We started these one Sunday afternoon and picked them back up the following weekend.  We finished them just before Thanksgiving which was perfect timing.  I dropped them off to be fired and picked them up the week after Thanksgiving - just in time to get them displayed for the holiday season!

We even had the forethought to paint the date on the bottom.  Here's to hoping these become family heirlooms down the road....displayed in the kids someday houses with their little kids helping to put in the bulbs each year.