Hi everyone and happy Monday! For Christmas my brother and sister-in-law got me a Groupon for two admissions to a Paint Nite. For those of you not familiar with the event, it’s a lot of fun! You go online and pick a bar as well as the theme of the picture that you would like to paint. Then you make your way to whatever location you picked and paint a beautiful picture and enjoy some drinks while doing so. My boyfriend, Kyle, and I went to the Paint Nite that we chose last Tuesday and we had a blast. Kyle took pictures of our progress on the canvasses throughout the night, so take a look and then let’s chat:

^^^ The one on the left is mine and the one on the right is Kyle’s.

Kyle and I spent close to a half hour browsing through Paint Nite’s website to find a theme and a location that we both liked. We settled on the Love Birds theme which would take place at the Canton Brewing Company in Canton, Ohio. This location was good for Kyle because he’s a beer drinker but looking back on the event, I would have preferred to be at a wine bar! We booked our tickets thanks to my Groupons a few weeks in advance so for two or so weeks all we could talk about was how excited we were for our night out.

Finally, our date night on Tuesday the 26th rolled around and it was all I could think about for the entire day! We arrived at the Canton Brewing Company which was gigantic and then headed down into the basement where the event was taking place. After we walked down the huge stairway we saw all of the canvasses set up on easels and a bunch of people gathered around to enjoy their evening. We snagged a spot where we could sit together which I was afraid was not going to happen because almost everyone was there by the time we arrived. After we established our spots we went to the bottom floor bar to get ourselves some drinks before the extravaganza began.

The Canton Brewing Company had a great selection of beers (obviously) and that was great for Kyle but not so good for me! I’m not a big beer drinker at all – mama likes her sweet white wines! Unfortunately, they only had two wines to choose from which was a red and a chardonnay which ended up being way too dry. I threw back the chardonnay even though it was extremely unpleasant and was then able to get a drink that I actually like upstairs at the main bar. After I got a vodka sour in my system, I was feeling much better!

Our painting party started promptly at seven o’clock and was led by a lovely hostess whose name I can’t remember for the life of me, so we’ll call her “Anne”. Anne is a high school art teacher and had a lively personality which made listening to her talk a lot of fun. The basic idea of Paint Nite is that Anne will paint a section of the canvas and tell you how to do it and then you repeat the process. This back and forth went on for about an hour and then we dispersed for a fifteen minute break to get more drinks, go to the bathroom, and let the paint dry.

Once we returned from our break we got to work on the second half of our painting. Our hostess did a really good job of explaining the process in laymens terms which was so helpful because Kyle and I don’t have an artistic bone in our body. It was also nice to have another art teacher there who made her rounds around the tables to give some pointers and replenish our paint supplies. Before we knew it, another hour and a half had passed and our paintings were finally complete! Again, here are the finished products:

I was really pleased with how our paintings turned out – everything except Kyle’s dumb old cardinals that he decided to paint hair on to differentiate which bird was which. He gave his alter ego bird spiky hair and he ended up giving mine a mullet…Thanks, babe. -_-

I had so much fun at Paint Nite but there are a few things that I would do differently. It was nice to be among such a lively crowd while we got our paint on but at times, it was almost too much. There were around thirty or more people there so it would get incredibly loud which made it hard to hear Anne teach us what to do. I would definitely prefer smaller groups because then you would be able to get some type of attention from the hostess and her helper. You also wouldn’t have to deal with the insatiable urge to yell “SHUT UP” at everyone. 🙂

Other than the over abundance of people, I’d say that Paint Nite was a wonderful time. I was so thankful for my Groupon Christmas gift because the cost to go to an event is forty five dollars per person. I honestly think that that’s a bit pricey which is too bad because I would love to go to another one but I don’t particularly want to break the bank for it – especially when you still have to pay for drinks, snacks, and parking.

My best friend, Lea, wanted to try a Paint Nite after I told her about how much fun it was so we looked in to going to an event together. We were both not too keen to spend sixty or so dollars for the evening so we planned our own Paint Nite to have at home. We searched on YouTube for instructional videos on painting canvasses so we’re going to get our own supplies, grab a bottle of wine, and let an over enthusiastic YouTube painter walk us through creating a picture. Hello, girls night in!

So there you have it, this week’s Monday Update: Paint Nite Edition! If you’re looking for a unique and memorable date night, girls night, or gift idea then I can’t recommend a Paint Nite outing enough. How many of you have attended a Paint Nite before? What did you think of it? I wanna hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah