Painting With a Twist

A couple of weeks ago, I met up with a couple of friends at Painting With A Twist in Tampa for a rather fun evening. If you are unfamiliar, Painting With A Twist is essentially an art class with wine. You sign up for a certain evening, and the cost includes your supplies. The instructor shows you how to paint that evening's masterpiece, and you are able to sip on the alcoholic beverage of your choice (bring your own). I love artsy crafty things, and I love wine, and I love having a rare night out with girlfriends, so I was super excited about this.

The night of this shindig, I got myself ready. And by "myself," I mean my wine purse - an incredible gift from my cousin Molly. It is literally a purse designed to carry wine, and even has a little secret compartment with cork screw included.

My wine purse in action

(Bad Parenting Moment Confession: when I opened that gift on my birthday, I actually said the sentence: "Oh cool! A wine purse! Now I can stop putting my wine in the stroller." Ooops.) (Although in my defense, this was back in Hoboken, where I had to walk to/from the liquor store, usually with Ellie in tow. So it's not like I was carrying it around in the stroller because I'm a wino that drinks and strolls, it was just my means of transportation.) (Geez. Ellie is going to grow up to be this kid, isn't she?)

Anyway.

When I arrived at Painting With A Twist, my friends Kristina and Jessica were already there. I checked in, grabbed an apron, and joined them in a glass of wine.

Jess, Kristina and me all aproned-up and ready to paint!

The class got started shortly thereafter, and we got to work painting our "Stilletolicious" works of art: a painting of five stilettos from the back. First we painted our canvases solid black, then traced the outline of the shoes, and then went to work on the details.

My canvas in its early stages

Shoe outlines

Starting to work on the details

The whole thing was a blast. We had a group of girls across from us who were in town from South Carolina to celebrate a birthday, and one of them in particular was a drunken hoot. They were a lot of fun. Also, the music was fantastic - some great old school stuff that got everyone dancing. The painting itself was fun too, so long as you didn't put too much pressure on yourself to get it right. Because for one thing, we're all amateurs here. For another, we're all drinking. Drunken amateurs should not concern themselves with perfect paintings and should just have fun. And that we did.

In progress

When our paintings were finished, we posed for a full class shot and for a photo with just the three of us.

My finished masterpiece

Ta-da!

After our drunken art class we dropped our paintings in our cars and Jess and Kristina tried to introduce me to geocaching, but unfortunately, without success. Another time, ladies! Then we stopped off for some martinis and hummus before calling it a night.

I had a great time hanging out with these ladies and doing a little artsy creation in the process. I would definitely do both again! Thanks for a fun night, friends!