Art, Crafts, and DIY

[Jersey Girl]

A little review on the stick apples and pumpkins project...

It took me a lot of trial and error to figure out methods of making them the way I wanted them to look. The dipping part was easy.

Icing...I trialed three different kinds of paints until I hit on what I wanted. The pumpkins have the first paint that I didn't like but I left them that way. The difference was the Christmas apples...Slick Puffy Paint ended up being the winner! Goes on easy...stays on...holds the sprinkles forever...and dries overnight. Nice and puffy...doesn't drip. Keep tapping the tip upside down on a paper towel or plate to get rid of air bubbles and don't squeeze too hard...bubbles again.

Sprinkles...The sprinkles are addictive. Once I started using those I thought of all kinds of projects I could use them on. Go on Amazon and look for resin polymer clay sprinkles for nail art. There's a TON of designs. Pricey but they're more fun than they have a right to be and they do go on sale.

Sticks vs. Candy Canes...

Candy Canes for the win! The sticks are hard to place and get them straight. Candy Canes...go right in perfectly! Open the hole a bit, put hot glue in the hole, and just push the cane in.

A child can do these. Would be so fun for a family and friends craft time. Or try one of my famous Paint and Pie days! Cover the table, give each person a waxed paper placemat to work on, put the apples out with sticks already in, set out sprinkles in trays or cups, with Tulip Slick Puffy paint...throw a pie on the table, paper plates, plastic forks and maybe hot cocoa or something for a drink and you're good to go.

I use cardboard flats from the grocery store lined with wax paper for sprinkling trays. Waxed paper liners help to get up the unused sprinkles to put them back in a container. Waxed paper placemats will make it easy to work on and gives children a defined space of their own.

k I'm done.

[IWMP]

A little review on the stick apples and pumpkins project...

It took me a lot of trial and error to figure out methods of making them the way I wanted them to look. The dipping part was easy.

Icing...I trialed three different kinds of paints until I hit on what I wanted. The pumpkins have the first paint that I didn't like but I left them that way. The difference was the Christmas apples...Slick Puffy Paint ended up being the winner! Goes on easy...stays on...holds the sprinkles forever...and dries overnight. Nice and puffy...doesn't drip. Keep tapping the tip upside down on a paper towel or plate to get rid of air bubbles and don't squeeze too hard...bubbles again.

Sprinkles...The sprinkles are addictive. Once I started using those I thought of all kinds of projects I could use them on. Go on Amazon and look for resin polymer clay sprinkles for nail art. There's a TON of designs. Pricey but they're more fun than they have a right to be and they do go on sale.

Sticks vs. Candy Canes...

Candy Canes for the win! The sticks are hard to place and get them straight. Candy Canes...go right in perfectly! Open the hole a bit, put hot glue in the hole, and just push the cane in.

A child can do these. Would be so fun for a family and friends craft time. Or try one of my famous Paint and Pie days! Cover the table, give each person a waxed paper placemat to work on, put the apples out with sticks already in, set out sprinkles in trays or cups, with Tulip Slick Puffy paint...throw a pie on the table, paper plates, plastic forks and maybe hot cocoa or something for a drink and you're good to go.

I use cardboard flats from the grocery store lined with wax paper for sprinkling trays. Waxed paper liners help to get up the unused sprinkles to put them back in a container. Waxed paper placemats will make it easy to work on and gives children a defined space of their own.

k I'm done.

Sounds brilliant. My kids would enjoy this.

[Jersey Girl]

Sounds brilliant. My kids would enjoy this.

They could definitely do it! If you try it, set it up as I described. That's how I would do a set up in the classroom.

[IWMP]

I have begun. My son's room, the blue room with the green and blue shapes. I painted the shapes on the existing, garishly pink wallpaper so that I didn't need to sand the whole wall when changing the room (had the foresight to plan for that lol) so I am now stripping off the wallpaper and I am delighted to see that for the most part, they wall is cream coloured. There is for some reason a patch of magenta paint but at least the entire wall isn't like that.

So the plan:
Finish stripping the wall.

I've noticed the wall needs some filling so, poly fill and sand the areas that need filling. I'm going to do that around the entire room.

Sand the shapes that I have painted elsewhere.
Strip the gloss on the window sill.
Finish painting the skirtings grey.
Either gloss the windowsill white or grey or cover in the black vinyl that I ordered for his drawers. (I most likely will gloss it white because that is how it will need to be if we move out).

Paint all of the walls white.
Touch up the ceiling.

Need beading for the edge of the laminate. The owners didn't bead it but it would be so much neater to do that.

I want to put a false half wall with a shelf on top where the chimney breast is. I believe I have what I need to do that but I don't plan to attach it to the walls. It will basically be like a wall unit that fits in the space exactly and paint that white or I may vinyl it white and the shelf on top either white of grey.

Project a mural onto the wall and paint that.
Put the star wars wallpaper on the wall that i just discussed above.

Then change the decor. I plan to get him star wars decor (bedding, posters etc) for his birthday so if I get the room at least fully white and the shelf/wall thing done and the skirtings then the base is done.

Will post images as and when. Right now all there is to see is a mostly stripped wall and wallpaper all over the floor and some grey skirting.

ETA, I am doing the grey skirting before the white walls because I find it easier to cut into the skirting than to paint the skirting avoiding the wall. I think you guys call them baseboards?

ETA: the wall is in not the best condition. I've got most of the paper off. Paint is peeling. I may have to sand all of the wall. It is clear that whoever painted the wall previously didn't preparation the plaster. May have given myself more work. I think tonight I may only manage to get the paper off, wash the wall and clear all the paper and put his bedroom in order for bedtime.

Then tomorrow I might empty the room completely, poly fill everything, let it dry and then mask up and just sand like crazy and strip and sand the windowsill. Then vacuum and clean everything. Probably won't get much more than that done tomorrow. Then Monday, would be paint skirtings/window sil and cut in all the edges/tape everything.

[IWMP]

So, update... I couldn't find the sandpaper but the amount of poly filler I used was like... Well ... I may as well have replastered the wall... Lol. Not literally. I cut in with white paint and now I'm at a stand still. I need new paint because the white paint has partly dried. My own fault. I decided it would be a great idea to pour all the white paints I had into a big 15L tub but after I did it I realised I didn't have a lid for this tub when I thought I had several so I covered it in cling film. So now I have enough white paint to cut in the room. Jamie won't order white paint because it's just as cheap to buy off the shelf for white which means I have to either order it in or go buy some and I need a roller and tray too. But before all that I need sandpaper. I don't want to put stripper on the window sil until later because I am not ready to face the mess. Oliver wants the window sil to be black. So I need to strip it, sand it and then I'm going to use vinyl to make it black because if the landlady doesn't like it and I paint it black I will cry. My only concern is will the sun light cause it to lift? I did see a tiktok where they put vinyl on the windowsill and I'm guessing that would suggest it is ok.

So because I'm at a standstill I decided to start another strange and totally unnecessary job.

Because I had to dismantle the bunk bed I now have a spare bed. But Phoebe's bed which is or was a velvet divan was not right, I tried to fix it but where the drawers were, they kind of dropped on because the rail was bent and they get stuck and for some reason the bed is lower at that side but I can't see the problem (I think if it didn't have drawers it would have been fine)... Anyway... I've taken most of the velvet pink fabric off and have staple gunned it around the sides of the spare part of bunk bed and now I am painting the ends. Killed my hands though. Not really strong enough for the staple gun but I was determined. So basically. I'm making a pink bed for Phoebe with velvet sides and I might see if I can find a way to put her velvet headboard on there. Either at the foot as like a bed end or as a headboard. Have a feeling it won't work out. But If I can make it into a foot end that would be pretty cool. And the drawers, I plan to add castors to the bottom and wheel them under the bed.


Edit: bed. Only just put it together. Not sure what to do with the headboard. It's too pretty to throw away. Kinda feel like I could make a seat with it. Like at the bottom of the bed. I have wood from the bunk bed railings. Think I might do that. Like a low seat.

[drumdude]

Project a mural onto the wall and paint that.

That's a really cool idea I've never thought of. Super simple, and I've already got a projector for it.

[IWMP]

Project a mural onto the wall and paint that.

That's a really cool idea I've never thought of. Super simple, and I've already got a projector for it.

Yeah... Kinda cheating but who cares. We don't need to be artists. It's basically black outlines so it's going to be easy.

[drumdude]

That's a really cool idea I've never thought of. Super simple, and I've already got a projector for it.

Yeah... Kinda cheating but who cares. We don't need to be artists. It's basically black outlines so it's going to be easy.

Cheating definitely has its applications. No one is ever going to ask “hey this looks great but did you freehand it?” Results are results!

[IWMP]

Yeah... Kinda cheating but who cares. We don't need to be artists. It's basically black outlines so it's going to be easy.

Cheating definitely has its applications. No one is ever going to ask “hey this looks great but did you freehand it?” Results are results!

As long as my son likes it. I'm knackered today. I did too much again.

[IWMP]

So, my son's room, I was delayed because we needed more white paint. Ordered white and black paint. Then had Christmas and a couple of bouts of fatigue. So today I put new curtains up, a black set with a white net type over the top. Will take a photo in daytime.

Was tucking him in and he said, since you haven't fully finished my room can I change the theme (I'm not sure if he has a new 'special interest' but he is very much into my singing monsters and he talks about it constantly and talks about it as if everyone knows all about them too and as if they are a normal part of life). So, I explained that because we have already done white all over and bought black and grey things for the room (lamp, light shade, curtains, paint, vinyl, black magnetic picture frames) can we continue with the black and white but I'll pack away the star wars canvases for another time and put my singing monsters posters and stickers up instead and get some my singing monsters bedding. I think he may have wanted green walls. I think what I might do is use lining paper, maybe do two layers and paint a large my singing monsters scene for him instead and then when it comes to changing it, I can peel the lining paper off. I took daughter's chandelier up to wire it and discovered I needed to buy a fitting to connect the wires together so I wasn't able to do that today but because I used the same paint as the paint on her walls it just looks awesome (I think anyway). Will take a picture when that's up. I haven't changed her room. She did ask if I could paint axolotls but I'm glad I didn't because she's not bothered now.

So, next week, we have an inspection and because I took wallpaper off in our room and then put filler all over, I need to up the priority of that room which I wasn't bothered about but it's the smallest room in the house so I think it can probably be done in a day.