When it comes to giving gifts to pet parents it can be kind of tough, especially with those with unique pets or mixed breeds. It's like finding your name on one of those keychains you get when you go on vacation. "No Jada, Shipoopi, or Delmar? I mean, come on!" This week we are looking at a very creative and personalized gift you can make at home for yourself, or gift to your favorite pet parent. Introducing...PaintaPic!
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PaintaPic has been around since 2011 and created by Keith Gould and Ryder Carroll. It is now under new management, but it is back and better than ever. So you know what paint by numbers is, right? If not, it is where you paint in blotches of color that are determined by a number. What makes PaintaPic so awesome is that you can upload your own photo and make your own personalized work of art! Let's get our smock on and show you how it's done...
So because I could pick any animal to paint, I decided to make one of my rats the star of this review..I mean come on, they need some more attention! This is one of my favorite photos of Everett, and I went to www.PaintaPic.com to upload it and create my kit.
You can choose how many colors and how much detail you would like. I did go overboard and make it pretty detailed. We do see a preview of what it would look like finished, but it would have been nice to see a preview of what it would look like before it was painted. When you checkout, you are given the option of different sizes and if you want to paint on canvas or fine art paper. I personally like the canvas because it is more durable. Also, you can stretch and mount the canvas before painting if you'd like. A digital kit is available if you want to color with Crayola crayons of colored pencils. I went with a medium canvas kit where the design is 12"x16" with a border.
It didn't take too long for the kit to get to me, on average it will get to you within a couple of weeks. It arrived in a triangular tube with paints and brushes, a larger version of the PaintaPic (just in case you need to double check something before you paint), and of course, your PaintaPic. I'm not gonna lie, I was like "Holy crap! How am I gonna do this?!" when I saw it, but I knew it was going to look good in the end so I began: number 1, number 2, number 3...etc.
I had picked 18 colors for my PaintaPic and they gave me plenty of paint and two brushes- a small and medium. I used the small one more often and had a cup of water and paper towel to use when I would change colors. These are acrylics and dry very fast. I barely made a mess!
The hard part about having it as detailed as I picked was that you couldn't tell the colors of a lot of small places. I made a lot of educated guesses, and later realized I could log into my account on PaintaPic.com and use their color identification tool. Ah well, no rules when it comes to your own creation, right?
So this is what my canvas looked like when I got finished. Pretty awesome, eh? Now I could have framed it as it is, but I wanted to paint a border with all the leftover paint I had.
I took a ruler, made 1/4" marks, wrote the numbers in the boxes and painted! I had to trim it about an inch in total on all sides to get it in this frame, but I am pretty pleased with how it turned out.
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| "Look mama, it's me!" |
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| "It feels good to be the masterpiece" |
See my speed paint and progress photos in our video:
In a Nutshell...
- PaintaPic has been in business since 2011
- You upload a photo and customize your paint by numbers kit to make it as simple or detailed as you'd like
- Usually, ships within a couple weeks and you get plenty of paint and 1-4 brushes (depends on how big your kit is)
- With your canvas or fine art paper, you also get a big piece of paper with your design blown up on it as a guide if you have problems seeing the areas to paint or you can go online to your account to their color identification tool.
- Canvas and fine art paper are the same price and all kits come with paint except for digital ones. Small (6"x8" with one brush) is $54.95 plus shipping and handling, Medium (12"x16" with two brushes) is $64.95 plus shipping and handling, and Large (21"x28" with 4 brushes) is $94.95 plus shipping and handling.
- You can buy a kit of your own at PaintaPic.com and use "TheChesnutMutts" to get 10% off!
Overall, this was a lot of work, but definitely worth it! Personalized gifts for pet parents are always a great idea (If you give me anything that looks like one of my babies I think it is amazing) and you can either paint it yourself or gift it to an artsy fartsy person :)
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| "It is so hard being this handsome..." |
Learn more about PaintaPic!
Which one of your pets would you paint with PaintaPic?
Let us know in the comments!
Show off your masterpiece with a custom paint by number kit from@paint_a_pic! Review: https://t.co/StEHW3IXpz #ad pic.twitter.com/lAoo3k6Qj9— Abby Chesnut (@TheChesnutMutts) May 7, 2016
Looks relaxing. I love online paint by numbers. www.segmation.com
ReplyDeleteIt is impossible to reach them if you have problems with a delivery for example because they never respond to emails and they have no phone number. Once you submit payment, there is no guarantee you will receive your order.
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