Rescued Table painted with DecoArt Chalky Finish Paints

I am AMAZED by what people want to throw away! I hope this proves why we shouldn't be so wasteful.

I took this beaten up but SOLID table. Sanded down the top to remove thick paint splashes. Washed it completely....3 times as it was really filthy. I wanted to keep the original brass fittings underneath clean and also the markings underneath so taped all edges of areas I wanted to protect before starting .

Originally I was going to paint it a range of colours as you can see from the product pic. But I decided to keep it simple and elegant so I could use the table in my hallway and just went for two beautiful colours colours: white (Everlasting) and pale blue (Serene).


To start with I painted the shelf white (Everlasting) to give a lovely contrast. Then painted the rest in the the serene. gave both a second coat being really careful where the legs cut into the shelf. Then I used a DecoArt stencil called Distress Harlequin which is one of the Chalky Finish range of stencils. I did this using a stencil brush and more of the everlasting paint and I was chuffed to bits with the results!
Once it was all completely dry I gave it a coating of the DecoArt wax cream to seal and protect it.

Why not have a go!
Suz
xxx

Fairy Door using DecoArt media acrylic products

Some time last year we had to cut down a rogue young tree growing by the back fence in our garden (don't worry we've got a forest growing up there and they were crowding each other out!). I asked hubby to try and get some cross sections of the tree trunk so I could use them to craft with....I didn't know how, but loved the idea of it.

Anyway I've got a bit of a thing about doors at the moment, having seen some amazing examples at Westminster Abbey in London a few weeks ago. And while having my usual brows through some pics on Pinterest I saw a new trend developing in 'Gnome Doors'. Well I'd rather have a fairy in my garden and it seemed the prefect way to use on of the slices of wood. It was very easy too so here's how I made it

The wood slice was REALLY uneven as you can see from the pics. I spread a thick layer of DecoArt Crackle Paste to even out the surface, but this still left a fab texture underneath as this paste doesn't level like the Crackle PAINT does. These pics show how much I used; like icing a cake. It took a few hours to dry as it was soooo thick, but the unevenness of the layer gave great variations in the size of cracks!

Once the crackle paste was dry I added antiquing cream in the patina and raw umber and a touch of white to emphasis the cracks and add colour. I left this a couple of hours then knocked it back with a damp cloth so it left a beautiful soft effect.

Then I added some gold metallic paint and also some gold Interference Acrylic paint. The first gave a more opaque gold which I smooshed into some of the cracks and wiped off the surface. The interference gave a beautiful sheen when it caught the light.  I also then added some other interference paint in the magenta which you can just see flashes of!

So those couple of pics of the fairy door at the top were taken in my studio against the wall with a daisy chain over the top made from punched paper and glamour dust glitter.  The other pic was by a redwood tree-trunk in  Claremont Gardens.....these fairies like to travel you know and by moving the door they can go anywhere!

Hope you have fun making yours! Suz 

Fern (the Fairy) challenging myself to paint a face!

Hi all

I love drawing faces....but I'm really not good at colouring them in! I Drew this face a couple of months ago on a page which I'd used to mop up paints from another project (as you do).

Anyway I decided to try and paint Fairy Fern's face!
Oh my goodness; I ended up making so many mistakes and with so many layers it was hilarious. But I kept going (even through the part where I completely messed up her hair and made her look like 'Wolverine' ) until I had a face I as fairly happy with - then I made myself stop before I messed it up again! I'm really glad I had a go.

Here are pics of the stages and details of the beautiful DecoArt Media Acrylic paints I used.

Here was the original sketch on a base journal page...I really liked it, very scared to paint it!

First layers of paint....eeeek.

Hair and face were a mixture of Titan Buff and Quinacridone Gold; but just a touch of buff mixed with the quin G for the hair and the reverse for the skintone.

For the next layer of skintone I added a tiny amount of cerulean blue and for the final rosy layer I added in a tiny amount of Quinacridone Red. I used a brush and then my fingers to blend in the paints.



Lips were painted magenta and titanium white with a few white highlights.

Then I started on the eyes. I liked the colour behind the eyes and it was again very similar to the colour I'd achieved with the buff and quin gold during the process of playing with hair colours.

So I added the white then fIIled in with the gold/hazel colour where needed and added tiny black lines in the iris' and for the lashes and lids. Once the eyed were dry I added a couple of dots of Titanium white to bring them to life a little.



I went back over the hair using just quin gold,I kept adding depth with more colour (burnt umber and burnt sienna).

Then I decided to bring the hair around the face a little more - BIG mistake and here was born Wolverine. It did make me laugh when I looked at it properly!

 So this was the beginning of "Wolverine recovery"! Basically taking the hair back with Titan Buff. But then I had to repaint the whole face again to get another even skin tone and it wasn't as nice as before (but it was ok!).

To paint the fairy wings I added Titanium White using quite heavy brush strokes for texture. Then I 'dripped and tipped' with a very water Cerulean Blue to create the veined look of the fairy  wings. 

I used the left over blue to fill in gaps around the edge of the page and to frame the top section. 

The leaf was several layers of paint again to give a bit of depth. Mixing PhthaloGreen-Blue, Green Gold, Prussion Blue Hue and Titanium white

Handwritten words added with Decoupage glue and Voilla! Little old Fern is as ready as she'll ever be!

Good luck with projects you're not sure about - the moral of the story is KEEP GOING!

Have fun

Suz

x