How-To’S

The Folk Art crackle medium for me, is like finding the holy grail. I just love an aged finish. I find such inspiration in urban landscape and decay and with this stuff, I can re-create that worn, weathered look.

Here’s how I did it – First, I painted a wood board dark brown and let it dry. Then I coated the brown painted board with the crackle medium and let that dry. Next, I painted over the board again with a light cream color.

Immediately, I saw the paint bubbling and spreading apart.

I LOVE the results and decided my typewriter stencil would be appropriate for this worn looking surface. I stenciled the typewriter design in a very dark blue, nearly black paint.

I then found a nice home for it on my shelves with my books!

I love to paint on surfaces that already have wonderful texture and a beautiful finish. Grasscloth is one of those surfaces. It’s natural, beautiful, and affordable. I cut some small squares of the cloth and using a few folk art paint colors I love, I stenciled these birds and bees stencil designs. These could be framed and made into wall art or varnished and used as coasters.

Chalkboards are so trending right now, I see chalkboard projects everywhere. I wanted to do some layering effects on the board and make it useful too. Also, I am a list person and creating this board will save me paper!
Here’s how I made my To Do board:

First I took a wood art board and poked two holes in it so later I could string it with twine to hang.

I then painted the board with Chalkboard paint. I used traditional black. I painted two coats.

Once that dried I stenciled the words “to do” on the board using my Corsiva alphabet stencil.

I wanted my to do board to be fun so I used my birds on wires to add these little guys and the lines function as areas to write. I stenciled using very little white paint to make it look like chalk but not be erasable. Once that was dry, I conditioned the board with some chalk. You have to rub chalk all over the board then erase it. Otherwise, when you write on your board, it may show permanently what you wrote.

I then strung some twine to hang the board. Hung, chalk ready, and time to write my list!

This project is the utmost in up-cycling. Using a discarded item to make a beautiful gift, I’m all about that! So, I went to the dog park the other morning with my best friend Larry, shown here obsessing on a tennis ball. There I found a discarded empty bottle of cheap brandy in the bushes and that is the bottle I will use to show you how to etch a design on to it. Don’t worry, I took it home in a bag and boiled it!

Wrapping a stencil around a bottle is not so easy and etching creme is thinner than paint so it seeps a lit under a stencil unless of course you are using these new adhesive silk-screen stencils by Martha Stewart. Yes, Martha and the people at Plaid have created yet again a fool-proof tool so you can be creative and not worry about messing up! These silkscreens are really easy to use and lots of tasteful designs to choose from. Here’s what I did.

First, I peeled the silkscreen off of it’s backing and placed it where I wanted the design to appear on the bottle. The back is sticky, re-positionable, and reusable.

Here’s a better shot so you see it really is a screen. This helps control your paint or in this case etching cream.

Then with protective gloves on, I brushed a generous amount of the cream onto the open areas of the stencil. Go in a few directions so you don’t see brush strokes.

After 15 minutes, I rinsed the bottle with the screen still attached in the sink. I peeled the screen off at this time and washed the bottle, the brush, and the screen/stencil.

I dried off the bottle and that’s when you can really see your etched design!

To finish it off, I carved an old champagne cork for the top and tied some twine around the neck to give it a vintage look.

It was so gratifying, I went hunting for more glass bottles! Hope this inspires you and please show me what you make!

Addicted to CRACKle Medium

Grasscloth – a natural choice

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Chalkboard to-do how-to!

Wood Panel Pop Art!

How-to: Etch glass using a silkscreen stencil