Tag Archives: paint

1 Comment

Redux – Paint a Flower Pot for Holiday Entertaining or Decorating

  By , ,

The holidays are rapidly approaching but there’s still time to create some great craft projects to help with decorating and entertaining. I want to share one of my earlier Christmas craft projects that is so quick and easy to make and has so many uses – the versatile terra cotta flower pot painted in holiday colors.

Christmas flower pot for entertaining

This painted flower pot can be used to hold food like cookies and candy (line the pot with a napkin first so that the food doesn’t touch the paint). For decorating use, it can hold ornaments or a plant. The size of pot that you use can also determine the use. A small 3 or 4 inch pot can be filled with food or small gift and given as a gift, or placed by the plates at a dinner party as a favor. Simply line with cellophane, tissue paper or fabric, add a food item or other small gift, bunch at the top and tie with a ribbon. Let your imagination come up with many more uses.

I used red and white for Christmas (which can also double as my school colors), but you can use other colors for different holidays – red, white and blue for the 4th of July, shades of green for St. Patrick’s Day, bright fun colors for a birthday, pastels for Easter, and so on. I also painted a flower pot for Halloween.

Easy peasy! I used a very simple design that is very easy to draw.

Wash the flower pot and go over it with alcohol to disinfect it.  With a pencil draw the lines for the stripes around the rim and draw 1/2″ circles randomly below the rim (or create your own design). Paint as shown in the photo.  I recommend painting one color at a time, allowing it to dry before painting with the second color. The white dots on the stripe were added last, after all drying. When all the paint is dry, seal with a coat of clear satin acrylic.

Enjoy!

Phyllis

7 Comments

Studio Make-over, One Piece at a Time

  By , ,

Making over my studio is progressing, but one piece at a time as I can work it in. After painting the file cabinets in my earlier post, I decided to use this poor lonely chair that had been hiding in a corner of my studio. I bought it stripped and unfinished years ago at an auction. I had intentions of doing something with it but had not. So it sat in a corner of my studio, lonely, unloved, unused, and neglected. After a re-do, this chair now shines brightly and sits prominently in front of a desk.

Turquoise painted chair

Hancock Fabrics had a sale on upholstery fabric so I got the amount I needed at 50% off the $17.99 price for around $6. I loved the print and colors, especially the turquoise. Actually, this fabric is an outdoor fabric, which is even better for studio use. I then went to Lowes with fabric in hand and found a great shade of turquoise spray paint. Its a few shades darker than my filing cabinets.

This project was pretty quick and easy. I just sprayed the chair with a few light coats of paint, then wrapped the seat with the fabric, tucked it under the bottom and stapled. And the total cost of the re-do was around $10. Not bad! I think it looks much better than the “before” version below.

Unfinish chair for Phyllis Dobbs studio

I’m so glad I bought this chair all those years ago. And since I also have a boring wing back chair that I use in my studio, also bought at an auction, I went back and bought more fabric for another makeover.  I just have to jump in and try my hand at upholstery which will be much more work than the chair seat. I’m mentally working it out with the help of a couple of books.

Here’s to success with all our little (and big) projects.

Phyllis

8 Comments

Sizzix Triple Blog Hop Week 7 – Gift Bag Topper

  By , ,

Gift bag topperCreate a treat bag topper to add a special touch to your gift bags! This week for our Sizzix Triple Play blog hop, we are using Eileen Hull’s Treat Bag topper die. There are so many possibilities for uses with this die with its versatility. I love it!

Decoupaged bag topper

I also love decoupaging so I decoupaged my topper to give it texture and color. I like the marbleized look that resulted, although the paper napkin I used was a floral pattern.

The materials I used included:

Die for Treat Bag Toppers Bigz XL Die #656774 by Eileen Hull for Sizzix

Heavy card stock

Mod Podge

Paper Napkin with a pattern

Cabochon bead

Pink oil paint stick

Green acrylic paint

2 pink rhinestone brads

Glue dots

Glue – Beacon Zip Dry

Treat Bag

Instructions:

1.Tear the paper napkin into small pieces and decoupage to the treat topper with Mod Podge. Use the Mod Podge to glue the napkin to the topper and to seal the top of the paper. I used several layers of the napkin to get more texture.

2. Paint the large medallion pink. I used an oil paint stick to paint it – I like the pearled look of the paint. I then painted a smaller oval medallion green.

3. Glue the the green oval centered to the pink medallion and glue the cabochon bead centered on the green medallion. I used glue dots to attach the medallion to the bag topper so that it stands out.

4. Use the rhinestone brads to attach the topper to the bag (after you have added your goodie to the bag!).

Be sure to check the all the other fantastic projects in the Triple Play blog hop by clicking on the forward or back button in the sidebar. This is the last week of this hop and it has been so much fun. I’ve had a blast working on the hop projects and dies.

Thanks for visiting the Triple Play Blog Hop! Please visit the TriplePlay blog for more fun ideas from Brenda Pinnick, Karen Burniston, Eileen Hull and friends. If you have enjoyed seeing all of the inspiring ideas on the blog hop, please “like” Triple Play on Facebook.

Have a great time  hopping!

9 Comments

Repurpose (recycle) a tee shirt into a Halloween Treat Bag

  By , , , , , ,

Repurpose one of your old tee shirts into a fun Halloween Trick-or-Treat bag for the kids (or for yourself to carry around for Halloween).  

To make this easy tote bag for Halloween, all you need is the following supplies –

Black long sleeve tee shirt

Green fabric paint (great if you use glow-in-the-dark paint)

2 pieces of green ribbon

Green rattail cording

Small orange buttons

2 large orange buttons

1 large orange decorative button brad

2 small yellow buttons

1 large yellow button

1/3″ wide orange ribbon

Needle and thread or glue

Piece of cardboard

Scissors

Instructions:

Lay tee shirt flat and cut the top of the tee shirt off above the top edge of the sleeves.  The cutting line is marked on the tee shirt below.

Fold the top of the tee shirt down over the front so that the bottom of the arm hole for the sleeve is at the top and the folded piece forms a flap.

Place the piece of cardboard between the 2 layers of the tee shirt and under where you will paint. Paint a pumpkin on the front of the tee shirt below the folded over edge and 2 to 3 inches above the bottom edge.

Sew the bottom front and back of the tee shirt together, sewing the seam 1 1/4″ above the bottom edge. Twist the sleeves and over lap the cuff edges by 1″ and sew together. Cut the bottom edge below the seam to form fringe.

Sew the end of the orange ribbon to the base of one sleeve “strap” and wrap around the strap until you reach the other end, cut the ribbon and sew the ribbon end to the strap. Fold 2 different lengths of ribbon together and stitch the fold to the tee shirt centered above the pumpkin.  Arrange the green rattail cording and sew loosely to the shirt as shown.  Glue or sew the orange brad on top of the ribbon at the fold.

Sew or glue buttons – 2 small yellow buttons in the eyes, 2 large orange buttons in the bottom corners, the yellow button centered on the folded over teeshirt area, and a row of small orange buttons to the edge of the fold over.

I hope you enjoy this project!  Be creative and paint a skull or any other Halloween design or use a different color shirt – let your imagination fly or enlist the help of the kids.  Your trick or treaters will love carrying this bag.

Phyllis