Happy Wood Shovel Snowman!

This easy to paint project will brighten your home during the cold snowy months!

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4 comments - Posted by Lisa at 8:12 AM - Categories: Staff Projects

Flag Birdhouse

As soon as I saw this Oblong Birdhouse when we were making our wood selections for 2012, I knew at some point it would have to be painted with a flag roof.  I painted the whole thing black, applied DecoArt Weathered Wood, and then painted the bottom Khaki Tan, the stripes Light Buttermilk and Rookwood Red, the field Uniform Blue & the star Light Buttermilk.  I finished it very simply by shading the red with Black Plum, both the light stripes and bottom with Burnt Umber, and the field with Payne’s Grey.  I’m going to hang it outdoors, so I finished it with DuraClear Varnish – Matte.

This birdhouse would lend itself to many designs, but I always saw it with a flag roof!

3 comments - Posted by MaryJo at 10:03 AM - Categories: Staff Projects

Noah's Ark and Wicker Bunny

Like many of you, I have projects lined up at home that I want to paint and need to paint. I love all of our resin, and couldn’t wait to paint our Noah’s Ark and Wicker Bunny. I chose to paint my ark Espresso with a Honey Brown roof for a slightly darker version. It wasn’t difficult to paint, but did take a little time and patience. I started with the characters and did all of their shading and highlighting before moving on to the ark and the roof. The wood portion of the ark I highlighted with Honey Brown and a touch of Mississippi Mud and didn’t worry about adding shadows due to the dark color I chose for the base coat. My youngest son loved it so much that he wanted it for his room, especially when he realized it lit up and changed colors.

The wicker bunny I just had to paint pink for Easter. Instead of painting the entire body, I just used my largest highlighter brush and scrubbed on Baby Pink lightly letting some of the white resin color to shine through. Any areas that got too much pink I just scrubbed on a little Snow White. It is so cute and looks great sitting out in my living room.

I have so many more projects to paint, that I need to get busy. After all I do have a bazaar in November to get ready for.
Happy Painting!

5 comments - Posted by Diane at 6:25 AM - Categories: Finished Projects | Staff Projects

Create this Cute Giftbag

This cute gift bag was created using our Canvas Lunch Sack and DecoArt's SoSoft Paints.  I adapted a design found in Laurie Spelt's Simple Sampler book.  This was my first real painting project on canvas.  If you remember I did stencil kitchen towels in an earlier post, but this was really my first actual painting project on fabric.  I did have a little trouble using graphite paper, so I ended up free-handing the cupcake outline using a regular pencil.  You do have to load your brush a little heavier than other surfaces, and paint does go through the canvas a little so make sure you have a cardboard inside the sack.  I found shading while the paint was still wet a great adaptation for the canvas.  I used Laurie's Swirls and Stars Stencil for the darker blue background and some other stencils we had around that worked for the flower, leaves, and "celebrate!" which made the project super fast.  Laurie's Alphay Stencil would be cute on the lettering as well.  When stenciling don't forget to use Stencil Tape to block those things that you don't want or you may end up with a boo-boo.  Since Laurie's original design was meant to go on wood, not all of her choices of DecoArt's Americana paints crosss over to SoSoft Paints, I had to do some blending of the browns to get the color I wanted.  Here is the list of SoSoft Paints that I used: Mocha, Warm Neutral, Dark Chocolate, Ultra White, Buttermilk, Lamp Black, Baby Pink Deep, Fuchsia, Dark Burgundy, Light Hauser Green, Green, Santa Red, Ocean Blue, and True Blue.

And just in case your mouth was watering when you saw these delicious chocolate cupcakes that Lisa made for our chocolate celbration day (her birthday and my anniversary), you can make these delicious Dark Chocolate Rasberry Cupcakes too.  Lisa does something a little special, she adds a layer of Ganache before the Vanilla Buttercream frosting.

0 comments - Posted by Anita at 8:00 AM - Categories: Finished Projects | Inspiration | Painting | Staff Projects

My 2011 Craft Bazaar Schedule

I have been doing bazaars now for about 6 years, and I would have to say, this year was slow and comparable to my very first year in sales. I bumped up my schedule and added two additional bazaars, both of which are fairly new bazaars, and for the flow of people, I didn’t do too bad.

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6 comments - Posted by Diane at 8:00 AM - Categories: Staff Projects

Painting Day Fun

I went on a painting frenzy; once I started Icouldn't stop!

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2 comments - Posted by Teri at 8:32 AM - Categories: Finished Projects | Inspiration | Painting | Staff Projects

Quick and easy ornaments

It’s always great to have a wide variety of quick and easy projects to paint for the holiday season because you never know when you might need a last minute gift. I came up with two fun and easy designs on our Rusted Stars and our Rusted Snowflakes that are so easy to paint. I turned the star into a pumpkin (I was making a Halloween tree at home, so this was my inspiration for this project). The snowflake just screamed “paint a snowman face on me”, so I did. Both of these were painted with just a few supplies, and painted up in minutes. With just the Holiday, Glowing Colors and Fall DecoArt Paint Pot Sets, you too can create something fun and easy to enjoy for yourself or give as gifts this holiday season. So, grab a surface and let your imagination go, you may be surprised at what you come up with!

Happy Painting

1 comments - Posted by Diane at 9:30 AM - Categories: Finished Projects | Inspiration | Staff Projects