Casa de Crews: Girls Night Out {Painting...with a Twist}!

This past Friday, I was able to round up the Tampa Bay Blogger Gals, plus some of my non-blog gal pals for Painting with a Twist, here in Tampa.

I felt like as a group, we were be-yond due for a fun meet-up sesh. Everyone seems to have jumped on the canvas painting bandwagon, and I thought it would be way to hang, as well.

Painting with a Twist was awesome! I thought I was last person on Earth to get in on the fun, but half of us had never tried our (literal!) hand at this painting thang.

I started by contacting the owners, Leslie & Marvin Gay to see how the heck one would book a private party and if it was something we could even do. Both were so patient with my gazillion emails, and for that I am forever grateful (no, seriously I had tons of questions for them!). After getting a head count, and enough rsvp's to book our own party (woo-hoo!), a plan was finally hatched...
We chose a fun summer painting titled, Summer Coolness. It looked easy enough for an artistically challenged kid like myself...

Their website says to, "unlock your inner artist". At first I was skeptical; mainly because I lack just about any and all artistic "talents" out there. But friends of mine love PWAT and say anyone can do it. Plus, hell-o you get to drink wine (your own) while attempting to find your inner artist. Honestly, they had me at: wine. I kid you not.

Once we arrived Friday night, I threw my snacks down to sign in and pick out my apron.

Come to momma...

Word

Then a little socializing was had before the painting began!

Crystal and I!

Lane, Jessica, Kari & Jenn

I have known all of these lovelies 10 + years; insane!

Once we simmered down, it was time to get to biz-ness. Becky, our instructor for the night, introduced herself and promised that we did not need to be the greatest of arteests to paint on our canvas. Becky did have an assistant, but her name escapes me and she wasn't around the whole night for me to ask again. But Becky was great and repeated questions when we asked (and with eighteen of us drinking wine like it was our j.o.b., she may have had to repeat herself a bit more than she wanted to, but if she was annoyed I couldn't tell) and broke everything down for us step by step (Oooh, baby. Sorry, NKOTB reference).

Becky, our painter extraordinaire!

The first thing we did was paint our blank canvas a background color. You could either follow step by step or veer away if you like.

All of us, except Emilee, stuck to the original scheme.

Rule.Breaker.

We dried our paint with blow-dryers and took a quick break before returning to finish. We used white pencils, did some outlines and took another ~~drink~~ break.

Our class was slotted for two hours, but we went a little over.

This may have been our distraction, but I'll never tell...

It was so much fun, ya'll. I'm not 100% sure about my painting personally, but aren't we all our own worst critics?! I loved everyone else's, though.

Anyone wanna trade with moi?

Voila! Mine...finished

All in all, I had a great first experience at Painting with a Twist. I can't wait to go back and (hopefully) perfect my painting skillz. PWAT does have a class once a month for those wanting to touch up their painting and/or finish if they need to and it is all totally free! I thought that was a great perk (and uh, I may need to go as well). I also loved that their website was pretty user friendly and all the answers that were patiently answered via email, were also online. Feel free to check them out, here! They have a few other locations in the Tampa Bay area, so don't get discouraged if Tampa isn't your hood. Actually, there are locations throughout the U.S., so you should totally see if there is one near YOU.