21 Mar 2015 1 Comment
in Painting
Hydrangeas that are in bloom all year-long!
Palette
Plaid FolkArt Outdoor Paints: Burnt Umber, Cobalt, Grass Green, Lemon Custard, Light Blue, Maple Syrup, Thicket Fresh Foliage, Wicker White, Yellow Ochre
Brushes – a flat brush, a filbert brush, a long thin liner brush, a ‘scruffy brush’ (an old brush that doesn’t hold its original shape anymore) or stippler, a cheap painter’s brush
Supplies– Landscaping stone (the rounder, the better), Mod Podge, pencil, ruler, paper plates
19 May 2010 Leave a comment
in Painting Tags: fixing a torn stencil, how to repair stencil, torn stencil
Although you try to gently clean your stencils, sometimes you will get a tear. This is easy to fix.
Take a small piece of scotch tape and lay over the tear.
06 May 2010 Leave a comment
in Painting Tags: all purpose sealer, nail holes, sandpaper, sealer, tack cloth, unfinished wood prep, wood preparation
Although you’re excited to get to the painting part of a project, preparation before painting is very important. There’s nothing worse than finishing a project and seeing unfilled nail holes.
Supplies
Wood filler – A good filler is DryDex Spackling by DAP available in hardware stores. It goes on pink and when it turns white you are ready to sand.
All-Purpose Sealer – Delta Ceramcoat All-Purpose Sealer, Decoart Wood Sealer and J.W. Etc. First Step All Purpose Wood Sealer are all fast drying and available in craft stores.
04 May 2010 Leave a comment
in Painting Tags: antiquing techniques, antiquing wood, distressing wood
Distressing provide a wonderful old look to a new piece. Distressing gives an ordinary piece character and history. As you’re distressing think of the way your piece might get banged around or banged into if it had been around for a hundred years.
The tools are common ones you may have around the house, if not, they are inexpensive to purchase at your local hardware store. The ones I use most often are from left to right – a cross peen hammer, an awl, a wood chisel and a rasp. As you can see, I use them a lot.
03 May 2010 1 Comment
in Painting
Easy and fun! This is a great technique for a many projects especially those yard sale finds. Gilding means a coating of gold or something that looks like gold. Metal leaf comes in many colors and is readily available at craft stores. An especially beautiful leaf is variegated green leaf which looks like an explosion. Leaf is wonderful on carved or raised pieces.
24 Oct 2009 1 Comment
in Food
I did this recipe for a class I’m taking on ancient Greek history. I love baklava! Don’t be intimidated by the phyllo dough. It can be a little daunting to work with but it’s worth it.
30 Aug 2009 1 Comment
in Painting
It’s bright and cheery!
12 Aug 2009 Leave a comment
Day 5 was painting day. This was also a big hit! We used acrylics instead of the usual kid paints. We painted large paper mache boxes. The creativity was wonderful!
One of my students was a young Japanese guy – an 8th grader. He didn’t speak English and stayed to himself. He was very creative, made wonderful projects. One of them was this box. He used a Pointillism technique which of course got me thinking about projects for next year.
12 Aug 2009 Leave a comment
Soap day was great! We used molds similar to the chocolate molds. Melting the soap was a bit of a challenge. In my attempt to be super organized I had colored it and put it into separate plastic bottles – the ones by Wilton. In the microwave they got way too hot and some of the bottles burst open. One of the big hits was embedding small plastic toys into the soap. We also made bath salts and put them in pint size mason jars which we decorated with ribbons and tags. I had found these great little wooden scoops that I got on ebay. This was a great project for working with measurements and what a “part” was (2 parts Kosher salt to 1 part epsom salt, etc.) . All the leftovers went into a large jar which I brought home. All the different scents mixed together beautifully and yesterday after a long day of organizing and paperwork I took a long, luxurious bath using a few scoops. This is a definite to do again next year!
07 Aug 2009 Leave a comment
Chocolate Day! This was a guaranteed winner! Elaine and I made cupcakes, brownies and rice krispy treats, we had all our chocolate melts in bottles ready to microwave, sprinkles, icing, pretzels for dipping and other goodies. I had a ton of chocolate molds I’ve collected over the years. This was a great project day and most of the finished projects were brought home, not a lot eaten, not a lot of hyper kids! And the parents loved it. Always a plus!
Create with Christine 