Art Party

October 16, 2019

Art Party

One thing that I love about Abby is that she likes to go on walks. Better yet, she likes to go on walks with me. Besides the exercise benefit of walking, walking is great because whether in amiable silence or an ongoing stream of chatter, we are spending time together. One of our walks led to something that I never thought a walk would lead to: Abby having a birthday party at one of the shops in Springboro.

Here's how it happened: One evening, Abby and I decided to take a walk into town. We live about a mile away from historic downtown Springboro. Really, into town is the only place we can walk from our house. If we turn the way opposite town from our subdivision, we will be out in the country in about a quarter mile and where the country begins, the sidewalk ends. So, to have a safe space to walk (aka a sidewalk), we have to walk towards town.

Historic Springboro is small, with just two lanes of traffic (one for each direction) and small businesses housed in historic buildings along the street. There's an ice cream store, the K &S (or just "The K" in local vernacular), Heather's Café (owned by Heather herself), an upholstery shop, a gun shop, a yarn shop, a wine bar and then about four or five small shops that sell clothes and home décor.

It was into one of the small shops, Hope & Grace Boutique, that Abby and I wandered during one of our walks. The store was open in the evening hours- an anomaly so we took advantage of it. We bought a small item (I only had a little bit of cash on me) and then decided to come back the following Saturday to shop properly- with a credit card. When I went online to check the store's hours, I was taken to the shop's Facebook page that showed the interior of the store. The picture showed a group of women with easels in front of them painting a picture. The caption said that the store hosts painting parties in off hours. I showed Abby the information and she said she wanted to have a birthday party there.

The weekend after Abby's birthday worked best for us and it was available at the shop. We invited Abby's dance friends. All of Abby's friends were able to make to make it even though Hanna had to leave early. Alyssa was on the fence about going to it. She takes after me in the, um, limited artistic ability realm. In the end, she decided she did want to go to the party if just to be with her sister- those two are the sweetest sisters (if I may brag for just a moment).

The painting went really well, for me, as I observed for the first hour. Things got dicey for me when I took over Hanna's painting when she had to leave. I am not a good drawer/ painter/ anything art related. Everyone else did an amazing job! Our instructor was the store owner's husband and he did a great job. He's a very talented artist. He showed us some pictures of some of his work. He sells a lot of his artwork even though he's not a full time artist. He instructed us well. He had both a finished product of what our paintings would look like (or fairly similar to...) on display and in addition to that, created a painting that we were doing, showing us step by step what to do. He also gave us an interesting history lesson. He told us that the store is the oldest building in Springboro- it was built in 1825. It was built as a springhouse for a farmhouse that was constructed about a year later. Springhouses are typically small as they were not intended to be residences and this building is no exception. It's only 400 square feet.

The girls ate pizza and cupcakes while waiting for a layer of paint to dry. The girls all seemed to enjoy the party- most importantly, the birthday girl had a good time. I'm glad we stumbled onto this shop (thankfully not literally), its website that showed it had painting parties, and found a weekend close to Abby's birthday to have a party there.

Here is the Hope & Grace shop that houses a boutique and then does paint parties after store hours