DIY by the Sea – Part 1

So, I just spent the most amazing weekend away from home, painting, making new friends and exploring a new-to-me part of Nova Scotia.  When Wendy from Front Porch Mercantile first started talking about DIY by the SEA at White Point Beach Resort back in October, I knew I wanted to be there.  And let me tell you, the weekend did not disappoint!

Our first night there, we went around the room and talked a little about ourselves and whether or not we had painted before.  Most people hadn’t, which surprised me, I had assumed that people who loved to paint would come to something like this, guess I was wrong…. 😉  But we got right into it, painting up our anchor that night, a nice, easy project to start with.

Now, I love all the thought that was put into the projects we did.  White Point Beach Resort is an ocean side, old school resort { by old school, I mean spending summers by the ocean, archery, sailing, swimming while living in little cabins along the shore } so our overall theme was nautical.  We painted whales, anchors, and the colours followed suit, lots of reds, blues and turquoises.

The other thing is that White Point is HUGE on Canada 150 and I love that!  They even have a heart with a maple leaf inside lit up on the bank, very visible from all the ocean side windows in the main lodge.  So, doing a Canadian flag was awesome.  I’m thrilled with how it turned out, the knot on the upper left, and adding the 150 on the bottom.  It’ll be a great reminder of all the fun we’ll be having celebrating this big birthday.

Even though we were all working with the same supplies, everyone’s projects were so personal and varied.  It was neat to see the thought process everyone put into their work – where they were going to put it, what room, or if they were gifting it to someone, what colours they would like.  So, even though we started with something similar, they all ended up very unique! Here we all are with some of our finished products!

We did 8 projects in the course of the weekend.  Saturday was doing a lot of first steps on projects and not seeing the end results until later that day or even on Sunday after things completely dried.  Trying to think of how or where you’d use all the different projects made you really stop to think about what colour combination you wanted or where something might look best.  I love how my crate with the jars turned out, they are perfect for the dining room table, but would work equally as well in my living room or kitchen, too.  I guess that’s the benefit to using the colours you love throughout your whole home!

We certainly had a lot of laughs over the course of the weekend.  Donna Hatt, the Marketing & Product Development Manager, really broke the ice for us on Friday.  I think laughter is a language that unites people.  There was singing, dancing and that was just Pam and Wanda….  The projects were great, hanging out at White Point was amazing, but, again, for me it was the people, making new friends and finally getting to meet Wendy IRL!!  Here’s two of my new friends, Holly and Suzanne, painting a piece of furniture.  I spent a lot of time with these two and my roomie, Tracy, and I’m so thankful for new friends!!  

We may or may not of also ‘borrowed’ a table from the back room and gave it a bit of a makeover, too.  Of course, we didn’t tell Donna that until it was too late and we were packing up to roll out on Sunday. That’s what the girls are working on in the photo above….it give everyone the chance to see the prep work required, how easy it is and how incredible the transformation can be.  We loved doing small projects, but really, I think a lot of us want to paint furniture.  Like Wendy told us, don’t start on your grandmother’s chine cabinet!

Here’s the before:

And here’s the after:

Ugh – due to technical difficulties, there is no After picture at the moment….maybe next post?

I can’t say enough wonderful things about the weekend.  It was a much needed get-away for me, to be creative, branch out and meet new people.  White Point was amazing, which I’ll talk more about in my next post, and I seriously can’t wait to go back.  This time, I’ll bring the family, I kind of think they’ll love it, too!

Thank you to Wendy and Lise for all your hard work doing the prep work, washing the brushes, trying to keep us in line.  Donna, thank you for all the work you did to make sure we had a fabulous time at White Point and making us feel so welcome!

I especially need to give a huge THANK YOU to At Home on the North Shore for sending me to this weekend retreat! It’s always exciting to get to scout out new ideas to share with our readers and to be freshly inspired by our amazing province and its people.  I feel very fortunate to be able to represent not only the magazine but also our area in this way.

To my new friends, you guys made the weekend for me, so thank you!! Tracy, thanks for not being an axe-murderer 😉

To be continued,

Lori