What is DRY BURSH PAINTING??

I get that question often enough to warrant a post/tutorial (of sorts!  No pictures though)

You can see pictures of numerous previous posts where I used the dry brush technique here, if you need some visuals.

I use this technique as often as possible.  It’s super fast and easy, and works on surfaces that have a lot of TEXTURE, that would otherwise take a lot of work to FULLY cover with paint.  And you get about the same look as painting, then sanding to distress.

I remember learning to dry brush in the 5th grade.  We could only use primary colors and had to paint one of the zoo animals that the teacher had put up pictures of.  Back then I was NOT very artistic.  I painted a blue elephant!   Anyhoooooooooooooooo . . .  dry brush painting IS so easy a 5th grader can do it.  It’s actually easier to DO than it is to EXPLAIN!   I wish I could SHOW you how.  That would be the ideal way to learn.

Don’t dip your brush in any water and don’t load very much paint onto your brush.

Have a ‘blotter’ next to your paint container, dip JUST THE TIPS of your paint brush into your paint, then swoosh your brush around on your blotter to distribute that little bit of paint on your brush and make it nice and DRY.  LIGHTLY, ever so lightly brush your first stroke across the surface of the item you are painting.  You should get about 50% coverage; leaving 50% of the area it’s original color.

It’s easiest to do on TEXTURED surfaces, like woven baskets, wicker, rough cut wood with a lot of raised grain; because if you lightly apply your paint you will only hit the HIGH SPOTS.

Practice on a scrap piece of wood or the back or under side of a piece of furniture until you get the feel for it.  OR buy an old basket for 99 cents at a thrift store and practice on that.  Then you can use the basket as a gift basket later on.  The secret is to have as little paint as possible on your brush.  Remember, if you don’t get as much coverage as you’d hoped with the first stroke, you can always go back and add MORE.  But if you get TOO MUCH on the first time, you can’t take it away.

Go look at the posts/pictures and you’ll have a much better idea.    Happy painting!

Did you do any AFTER Christmas shopping for craft supplies on clearance?

Here’s what I did with some of the stuff I bought on clearance from Dollar Tree:

Vintage sheet music covered tin stars go well with Christmas / winter decor.

AND  with basic white every day decor.  (like I have in my booth at Stars!)

AWESOME, big, 3D stars!

What a FUN party decorating idea!

Not on clearance, but still just a DOLLAR!  Altered New Years party hat!

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE ENTIRE POSTS.  over on my Dollar Diva blog.

Still licking my wounds . . .

And mourning the loss of all the pictures on my computer, so I figure this is a good time to take a break from blogging.  I just need some time to re-group and gather my wits.  Everyone is so busy with the holidays right now anyhow, you really don’t have TIME to read all your favorite blogs.   And it’s just too late in the season for me to try re-taking pictures for all the holiday projects I lost.  I look at it this way, next year will be TWICE as good!

So, for now I’m going to start on my Valentine crafting and focus on getting LOTS of new product listed in my etsy shop; and enjoy looking at other blogs for great holiday ideas like this:

How GORGEOUS is that?!?!?  The tutorial is HERE.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas.  Don’t forget to say “Happy birthday Jesus!”  (it was a tradition to have a birthday cake for Jesus when I was little!)  And please don’t let the holidays stress you out!  That is SO NOT the reason for this season.  If the stress is too much, take a break!  The world won’t end if you send out brief holiday emails instead of printed color picture newsletters!   Or if a few packages arrive AFTER Christmas, instead of before.  Or if you BUY cookies (or premade dough!) instead of making them from scratch.

If you don’t ENJOY it, don’t DO it!  Your friends and family will probably be GRATEFUL that they don’t have to reciprocate and keep up!

Happy, REALLY HAPPY Holidays!

Vintage gate leg table with missing severely damaged veneer

I asked Michael to ‘keep an eye out’ for a gate leg or drop leaf table.   SO, THIS is what he dragged home:

You can’t really SEE in this picture, because of the glare from the sun, but the veneer top is HALF missing!  It has been sitting for MONTHS while I racked my brain trying to think of HOW I can fix this much damage.  What was he thinking?!?!

But, in his defense, I must say that  I always tell him “It doesn’t matter how badly damaged a table top is, I can fix it (or work with the damage for a primitive look!).  Just be sure the LEGS are in good condition; because legs are hard to sand, and have to be done by hand.   I just didn’t ‘qualify’ that criteria by stating SOLID wood top.

And I did once fix up a damaged veneer top oak pedestal table.  But this current table is different.  One entire leaf of it had to have the veneer removed, which Michael did for me.  Then there were several ‘stripes’ of missing veneer.  Just sanding and re-staining was NOT going to cut it on this table.

I couldn’t really even just PAINT the top, because that just wouldn’t ‘go’ with the ornate legs.  AND you’d still be able to SEE how one side was slightly lower than the other when both ends are up.  If “I” were just going to use it myself, I wouldn’t care.  I’d just leave the bad side down and against a wall.  But we need to SELL this stuff!  What to do??? WHAT TO DO!?!?!

As I prepped the top by sanding, even MORE veneer peeled off!  YIKES.  This table top just may have to go to the dreaded ‘burn pile’;  salvage the legs  and add a new top.  Then it hit me!  COVER the top!!

With old book pages!  The above photo was taken while it was still a little wet.  Just use liquid laundry starch as your adhesive.  For a big job like this I use a paint brush to apply my starch.  Apply it to the surface, then to the back of the paper.  Place the paper and brush over it again with the starch.  The older the book, the more yellowed your pages will get.

Most of the small bubbles and buckling will diminish as the piece dries.  But you can always pull the paper back up if you need to reposition it or get big bubbles out.

Along the curved sides I just used the handle of my brush to ‘gently scrape’ along the curve, and tear away the excess.  Be sure your paper is very WET with starch while doing this, and tear VERY SLOWLY.

This picture shows how much more the paper yellows with the starch.  That paper is still wet, hence the blotchiness.   As you apply your paper, be mindful of the ‘pattern’ you are creating.  Try not to have it too matchy-matchy, but not TOO haphazard and busy either.

And here’s the finished table!  Lookin’ GOOD!!!  I haven’t added a sealer on top yet.  While it’s not ‘necessary’, for things like table and dresser tops that will get a lot of wear and tear, it’s a good idea.  Be sure to use WATER based MATTE varnish. You don’t want any SHINE.

This really is a pretty ‘quick and easy’ process.  Tear out all your book pages before you start the papering process.  I left the torn edge, but you can trim it away if you prefer.  You can ever trim away the entire border if you wish.  OR add some additional pages on top at different angles, like I did with the picture pages on this desk.   *(Notice the difference the AGE of the book pages makes!)

This is a very ‘flexible’ look.  Soft enough to be blended in with shabby chic.  And ‘heavy’ enough to go with the primitive look.

But be forewarned!  It is ADDICTIVE!  Once you finish your first project, you’ll be wandering around the house looking for MORE things to paper!

I used pages from an old church hymnal for this cylinder storage box (almost a foot stool size).

SPECIAL HINT FOR LAMP SHADES:  Paper the INSIDE as well as the outside.  When the light shines through, all you seams and overlaps are OVERLY obvious.  By double layering your paper (one layer outside and one layer inside) it will minimize this.

By special request; how I make my signs tutorial

A very nice gal emailed me last week, stating that she wanted to make signs as gifts for Christmas this year, and wanted to know HOW I make mine.  I’m happy to share that information.  Although, this will have to be a picture less tutorial, because I wasn’t really planning on doing it at this time, and I don’t have time to search through the bazillion old pictures I have on my hard drive to find ones of the sign making steps.  It will be easier for you to scroll back through the different ‘sign’ blog postings using the link on the side bar if you need to see pictures.

WOOD,  just about any kind of wood will do.  We use reclaimed birch plywood.

PAINT,  I use water based acrylics in paint, stain and varnish.  Matte varnish has the LEAST amount of sheen, and works best for signs.

FOAM ALPHABET STAMPS,  these come in all kinds of sizes and font styles.  Depending on what kinds of signs you are going to make, different styles will work best.  For a beginning sign maker, I’d recommend starting by making one and two-word signs; and therefore, buying bigger stamps, like 2″.  I buy my stamps locally at Joann’s.  Sign up for their email list to get discount coupons, valid in-store AND for online shopping.

BASE COAT YOUR SIGN BOARDS.  Be sure your wood is sanded smoothly first.  If you don’t have an electric sander, use ‘coarse sanding sponges’ . Wipe off all sawdust and base coat your boards.  I usually use black.  Paint the top side and edges.  Let dry.

PAINT YOUR TOP COAT: After your basecoat is dry, paint on your top coat, any color.  Paint ONLY the top surface this time; leaving the edges black.  Let dry, then sand; a little or a lot, depending on how distressed you want your signs to be.

LETTERING: Black paint is best, unless your sign bases are a very dark color.  Cut up a regular household sponge into 1″x 2″ pieces.  This is what you will use to apply the paint to your stamp.  BARELY moisten the very end of one end of your sponge; just enough to make it ‘pliable’, but not wet.  Squeeze out as much water as you can using a towel.  Squeeze a blob of your black paint onto ‘anything you want to use for a palette’ (a piece of cardboard works fine!) 

Dip the softened end of your sponge into your paint.  Then ‘tamp it down’ on a clean part of your cardboard, so it’s worked down into the sponge.  Then tamp the painted end of the sponge along the printing surface of your letter stamp.  I highly recommend making a ‘template’ of your sign first.  Use a piece of newspaper and stamp out your letters.  Then use that template to properly space your letters on your board.

(scroll down to the second half of THIS POST to see my sponge painting tutorial)

DISTRESSING: Don’t worry too much about perfection.  You’re going to further distress your sign after your lettering dries, and distressing covers a multitude of painting boo-boos!  Sand the edges a bit this time also.  Sand as much or as little as you want.  Just be sure your sigh is still ‘readable’.  Apply a coat of stain at this point IF YOU WANT.  I have my own secret recipe for stain that I do not share, ever.  (It’s the ONE THING that I don’t share!)  You can get a similar look by using Ralph Lauren Tobacco stain.  Don’t be afraid to try other stains if you have any on hand!  You just might like something else better!

VARNISH: Lastly apply a light coat of MATTE varnish.  If the sign is for outdoor use, be sure you get waterproof varnish.  For indoor use, you can skip the varnish if you want to.  It just ‘sharpens’ the colors a bit and adds a nice finishing touch.

I use ‘nail-less sawtooth hangers’ on the backs of my signs.

Boxes covered with old book pages

This is such a FUN look.  And very easy to create.  You can cover just about ANYTHING; big or small, including FURNITURE!

All you need is some LIQUID STARCH; I’m using Sta-flo, as shown here.  There is another brand called Vano that works just the same.  Depending on where you are in the world, there may be different brand names; but good old-fashioned liquid laundry starch is pretty much all the same.  Don’t worry about the pale blue color of the starch, it dries clear.

I covered these garage sale paper mache canisters.

FIRST you’ll need to tear out your book pages and tear them up into smaller pieces.  I do this while I’m watching TV, and I just keep a stash of torn pages on hand all the time so that when inspiration strikes, I can ‘get right to it’ and not have to sit and tear pages until my fingers ache!

For things like these lids, you’ll need really small pieces.  To use the starch, SHAKE the bottle well.  Pour about an inch into a shallow pan of some sort.  Keep a damp towel nearby to wipe your hands off with.  Then just dip your strip of paper in the starch being sure it is fully covered.  Squeeze off the excess starch and slap in onto your object.

If you are covering something with LIDS, like I have here, be sure there is enough ROOM for that extra layer of paper on the rim.  On this set, only the largest box had extra room.  The other two I had to leave the space for the lid unpapered so the lid would still fit.  Slightly overlap your pages as you go.

Let dry overnight.  Sometimes during the drying process some of the edges will curl up.  This is easily remedied by applying a drop of starch and rubbing it back down into place.

Since I wasn’t able to apply paper all the way to the top of all my canisters, I covered that space with some black paint, using a sponge painting method.

I also sponge painted the edges of my lids.

SPONGE PAINTING TUTORIAL:

I use the sponge painting method quite frequently.  It’s fast and easy and doesn’t require any fancy expensive tools.  You need PAINT,  a little piece of a regular ole household sponge and a ‘palette’ for your paint.

VERY LIGHTLY dampen 1/4″ end of your sponge.  I put a teensy bit of water on a plate and tap my sponge into it for ONE SECOND.  You can see in the above photo how much of the sponge has taken on water.  Wring it out in a towel to remove as much excess water as possible.  You want it to be ‘soft and pliable’, NOT wet.

Here’s my fancy paint palette!

Add a small amount of paint; I’ve used black.

‘Load’ the softened end of your sponge with the paint by gently tapping it in the paint to coat evenly.

MOST IMPORTANT STEP!  Dab your sponge on a dry area of your palette to work off some of the paint so that there isn’t any ‘visible WET paint’ on the surface.  Do a couple of ‘test dabs’ on a piece of newspaper and see how it looks.  You should be getting about 50% coverage each time you dab.

It’s kind of an ‘airy’ splotchy look you are going for; not FULL coverage.  If you are unsure, go LIGHTER!  You can always go back and add more; but you CAN’T remove excess!

I decided to add some scrapbook embellishments to mine.  But I see a lot fo them just left ‘as is’ with the book pages.  You can paint or stamp on top of the paper . . . whatever you want!

If you are papering furniture and want a more wear resistant finish, you can apply any kind of varnish on top of the paper once it’s fully dry.  BUT, if you leave it UNvanrished and change your mind later on, you can remove the starched paper by simply WETTING it and peeling it off! 

  I’ve covered several lamp shades using the method.  Sheet music is fun to use too!  What do YOU want to cover with book pages?

Book pages wreaths ~ revisited

LOVE all the different stuff bloggers are doing with old book pages these days!  It saddens me a tad to rip old books apart, but the end results just make you love the written word on a whole new level! 

It seems to have started with the ones with pages rolled into cone shapes and attached to a backing in a circular shape.  I passed on making any of those.  While I LIKE them, they just weren’t quite ‘my thing’.  THEN I saw (STILL cannot remember where!!) someone who had cut leaf shapes out of old book pages to make a wreath like this:

And I KNEW I had to make one.

Quite simple really; quick and easy.  The most time consuming part was covering the foam wreath form with paper!

Michael thought it needed ‘more color’.  That it was too plain.  So, I didn’t make any more for a looooooooooooooooooong time.  Decided to ‘get back into it’ on Monday, while I was resting up from setting up at our new space.  Cutting out leaves while watching TV was sedate enough to get rested, but productive enough to not feel like I’d wasted a day.

I came across a batch of leaves that I had TORN instead of cutting; and inked the edges.   My old arthritic hands did not like tearing out all those little leaves very much!  But this batch was done, so I worked with it.

Glued strips of pages to my green foam wreath from Dollar Tree.

Then hot glued the leaves to the wreath, one by one.

It DOES have more color and texture than the plain cut leaves one, but it still was not quite right.  And I actually liked the PLAIN one better than this one!  Was wishing I had some really OLD yellowed pages to work with!  HEY!!!  I can MAKE them look old with my grubby stain!!!

So I cut out a bunch more leaves.  Lightly spritzed my cookie sheet with some water so the paper leaves would ‘stick in place’.  Then I sprayed the whole sheet with my grubby stain.  (this is my own special recipe and does NOT use coffee or tea.  Can be made unscented or lightly scented.)   Turn the oven on to it’s LOWEST setting.  As soon as it reaches temp, TURN IT OFF!!!  Put your pan of wet stained leaves into the warm oven.  Don’t turn the oven back on!!  There will be enough heat to dry up your ‘leaves’ in about 10-15 minutes.

Look how beautifully they dry up.  Various shades of brown, some with darker edges and some nicely curled; just like REAL leaves do when they dry up!

Then I just get out my trusty hot glue gun and glue them to my covered wreath form!!

Love, love, love how these turned out!!!

And I couldn’t stop making them!!!

I didn’t even have to add any kind of ‘hanger’ to them.  The wreath part sticks out enough on the back to plop onto a nail.

I’m going to ‘go out on a limb’ and predict here and now that tea stained book pages wreaths will be the next ‘big thing’!  I wonder if I’m really the first one to think of this???  I know I haven’t seen it anywhere else before and came up with the idea all on my own.  But that doesn’t mean lots of other creative folks haven’t come up with the very same idea! 

Will be interesting to see!

* The inked edges wreath has gone to Stars.  The stained ones will be going to Camas.

Painting bird eggs tutorial

I found some nice packages of little Easter colored speckled eggs at the craft store.  The white and blue ones I could us ‘as is’ in my nest projects, like this:

And this:

 Had to paint the pink and yellow ones though.

These are from 4 or 5 packages.  When I find them I buy as many as I can because it’s so hard to find eggs the rest of the year!  And while painting eggs isn’t the easiest task because of their shape and size (these are about ‘quail’ size) I’d rather buy ones that i have to paint than not have any at all.  I’ve got a bazillion ‘nest’ ideas left over from last year that I couldn’t complete due to running out of eggs.

Trying to hold these between your fingers and paint them is utterly futile.  Here’s how I do it.  I take a small plastic tray (saved from those pre-cooked entrees) and cover as much of the bottom of it as I can with a sponge.  (I bought the ginormous bag of assorted sponges at dollar store years ago and always find a new use for them!)  This one was much flatter than the res of the sponges and perfect for my use here.  Thicker ones will work fine too, and even 2 or 3 of them side by side will work just fine.  Dampen your sponge to soften it up, then wring, WRING, WRING out as much water as you possibly can.  You want it to be soft and damp, not wet and soggy.

Next take a small piece of cut sponge (sponge painting tool!) and dampen JUST 1/4″ of the end, and wring out as much moisture as you can.  You want just the painting end to be soft, the rest needs to be firm enough for you to handle.  Squirt some paint onto your base sponge and work it around with your tool piece.  Kind of like loading a paint roller.  You want it well loaded, but not sloppy sloshy full.

Plop in an egg, and using your tool sponge, press and roll it around in the paint using your sponge tool.   You’ll be applying paint top (from the handheld sponge) and bottom (from the surface sponge).   Do this until your egg is fully covered with paint.  Then drop it onto a drying tray.  You’ll need to repeat this process twice to get complete coverage.  I do ALL my eggs with a first coat, let dry, they do all with a second coat.  For the second coat, you can do several eggs at a time.

For adding specks to the eggs, I use a ‘fly specking tool’.  Seriously, that is what it’s called.  You can buy them at the craft store.  Just thin your paint about 50/50 with water.  I’ve seen lots of crafters who use old toothbrushes or combs for this, but I could never get them to come out right, so I splurged and bought the tool; under $5.00.

I cram my eggs close together for the specking process, so thins just gets one side.  Let dry.  shake your eggs around to expose the other side and speck again.  You’ll need to do this 3-4 times, depending on how speckled you want your eggs to be.

And now I have enough eggs to last me ALL spring!

 

 

Waste not . . . want not.

Over the last course of the past month, while making LOTS of these :

I ended up with a lot of this:

Very small scraps, mostly triangular in shape. And being in craft room overload mode still, I was doing my duty and tossing the scraps away at first. Then I had a brainstorm!

I could cut our little leaf shapes and use them to cover a cone tree or maybe a topiary. In my search for the styro cones the hot mess that is my craft room, I came across my stash of styro balls first. And here you have them:

Almost ‘artichoke’ like, eh?

To make them I covered almost half of my styro ball with Aleen’s tacky glue (pretty much always my ‘go to’ glue) Started with five petals at the top in sort of a star fashion.

For the remaining rows I needed to put a dot of glue on one end of the petal, because I had them overlapping. Placed the end with the dot of glue slightly overlapping the previous row, and press the rest of the petal down into the glue that was on the ball. And just keep going, row by row.

Once you’ve covered the half that you pre-glued; flip it over and do the other half. It really only takes a couple of minutes to attach all the petals. Cutting them out is the laborious part. But a labor of love and a few less scraps tossed into a landfill.

I’d love to hear your ideas for other things I could use such little scraps for!

***Posted on TALES FROM BLOGGERITAVILLE’S Thrifty Thursday.

And BEYOND THE PICKET FENCE under $100.00 linky party.

Handcrafted shabby primitive angels

I’m not much of a sewing gal. I can sew. But not profitably when it comes to crafting items to sell. Sewing is a relaxing craft to me, and I much prefer to hand sew than use a machine. Maybe I just got burned out on sewing after having sewn all my own clothes for high school? Certainly since having a good portion of my spine surgically fused, sitting hunched over a sewing machine is very painful.

But now that the store is closed and I have more time to sew, I’m trying to branch out a bit. First I started with some really simple hand stitched hearts for Valentines.

These silly little things have been selling like HOTCAKES at my space in Stars!

So, after warming up my sewing hand on the hearts, I decided to tackle some DOLLS. I’ve been wanting to make some for eons! Even have a big stack of stitched, but unstuffed doll bodies ready to go; that were sewn by a friend. One of my sewing friends wanted a bunch of my painted wood stuff a few years ago and we worked out a trade whereby she paid me in doll bodies.

I had tea stained all the doll bodies I have last summer. Always best to tea stain and let dry in the sun whenever possible. The stain ‘blotches’ up much better in the sun. AND it’s easier (and more economical!) to stain BEFORE you stuff, as the stuffing will absorb a lot of the stain.

*** You can buy my stain recipe HERE or in my etsy shop.

I stuffed several of the bodies one evening while watching TV, then had to ‘talk to them for a while’ to find out what they wanted to be. This particular shape seemed very angelic to me, so they became angels.

For the wings I used some scrap cardboard and covered it with burlap (glued on with tacky glue). Designed my wing shapes on a piece of paper, folded in half, to make each side match. Then just opened them up and traces to the back of the burlap coated cardboard piece, and cut out.

A bit of tacky glue to adhere the wings. You can see the ‘stuffing seam’ here on the back. After I put the wings in place, i set a heavy book on top of them to keep it pressed firmly in place while the glue dried.

I decided on uber simple faces for these first two. Small upholstery tacks for the eyes (pushed in with a drop of tacky glue) and a larger tack, stitched on for the nose.

I didn’t get pictures of ALL of the next steps, but they are all fairly simple. I hand stitched some burlap threads on top of her head for hair; one or two at a time until it ‘looked right’. Cut out a burlap halo from the scraps from my wings. You can see her ‘petticoat’ but it’s a strip ft tea stained cheese cloth under her tulle skirt, glued into place. For her tulle skirt, I just did a running stitch across a strip of tulle; then glued on a strip of muslin for the belt/bow in the back. The ‘hope and love’ banner in her hands is some trim I purchased. (Currently available for sale in my etsy shop)

I used some tea stained cotton yarn to ‘cross wrap’ her wings from the front and around to the back. And tied a little key and heart to the front.

Here you can see how I cross tied the wings; tied her skirt bow and attached her halo, but punching two holes and using a safety-pin AND some tacky glue.

Her dainty little feet were begging for ballet slippers. I used some more of my burlap thread and just tied it around her feel and lower legs.

Her fellow angle here was created in much the same way, but with different materials in some instances. Different style of wings; burlap to tie the wings on; a tea stained doily for her halo; shorted hair, but still made with burlap thread; tea stained cheese cloth for her skirt; and a bigger key around her neck; and ‘live love laugh’ banner in her hands. (which is also now available in my etsy shop).

Both of these sweet gals are currently for sale in my etsy shop.