Sunday, May 18, 2008

Celebration of colour (color) : crackle paints

Hello everyone. It's Fiona here and I'm working with one of my favourite (favorite) mediums at the moment, Ranger distress crackle paints.

The little project I'm creating is a set of magnets.



My magnets usually find a place on our fridge, helping to hold precious photos or notes. We display lots of things on our fridge, for us our fridge is a photo album on display. Visitors to our house will stand in front of our fridge for ages looking through the photos.

So onto the project. Here's what you'll need for the first steps of this project: chipboard shapes (Maya Road), acrylic paint (Plaid Folk Art) and distress crackle paint (Ranger).



Paint the chipboard shapes with acrylic paint:



Leave these to dry throughly:



Choose coordinating colours (colors) of the distress crackle paint:



Paint on the distress crackle paint:



Warning: this paint is thick. You should try to apply it once and not re-work the surface. You can get a large crackle effect by using a thick layer. For a finer crackle effect, try to use a thinner layer of the crackle paint.



Leave to dry throughly again. You'll see the undercoat of acylic paint showing through the cracks of the top layer.



Sometimes I like to add a little gloss to the painted chipboard shapes. Traditional glosses can trap small air bubbles in the cracks of the paint, so I use clear embossing powder to give a glossy surface. You'll need your stamping supplies for this stage, VersaMark ink pad, clear embossing powder and your heat gun.



Apply the VersaMark ink to the shapes:



Sprinkle shapes with the embossing powder:



Use the heat gun to melt the embossing powder, giving the glossy finish to your chipboard shapes:



Add embellishments if needed to the chipboard shapes. I added buttons to the flower centres:



Use a hot glue gun to assemble the chipboard magents together:



Add magnets to the backs of the finished shapes:



Here they are again, all finished.



....and our fridge, well, here's a photo of the top half, lots of memories on display:



I'd love to see any little magnet projects that you make, leave a link in the comments, so I can see your work.

Hope you have a great week. Thanks for visiting.

Cheers

Fiona xx

16 comments:

  1. Thanks for the workshop!

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  2. These are fabulous!!! I definitely will be trying these since I have a bunch of these chipboard flowers left over from a project. Thanks for the great tutorial! :)

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  3. Fiona..I absolutely LOVE these and will definitely plan to make some with Haley this summer! Thanks so much! :-)

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  4. Amazing Fiona--I ADORE your work!
    Melissa

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  5. I've been looking for a project to do with my 6 year old niece and this is perfect. Thanks for the idea Fiona!

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  6. What an amazing journey! LOVE all your pics and tips and the project is wonderful

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  7. Adding this to my "summer fun to-do with Tyler" list! Love the flowers and the crackle paint is such a great touch!

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  8. Fiona - I LOVE THESE!! This is fantastic. I'm sooo inspired!

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  9. Great project! You were the Tutorial of the Week on www.cardoftheweek.com! Check it out at: http://www.cardoftheweek.com/2008/05/tutorial-tues-2.html

    Thanks for the great tutorial!!!

    Susanna

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  10. Hey there. I made a slightly altered version (I couldn't find crackle paint), here's the link. Thanks for the inspiration.

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  11. LOVE these, Fiona. I never thought about embossing them. Great projects!

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  12. LOVE the magnets and the other ADORABLE magnets, like the "we" "are" "family" and little faces! I LOVE those, did you buy them or make them? Great job!

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  13. Love these and need to get my hands on those paints! Awesome idea (and love your fridge!)

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  14. Hey Fiona, love love love your magnets and the great tutorial. I did a take on magnets some time back - did not use crackle paints (although I absolutely love crackle paints!) but here they are http://kitkatzmeow.blogspot.com/2007/09/altered-magnets.html

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  15. Where did you get the buttons you used for this project? Super cute! My daughter just got her first post-collegiate job and was looking for magnets for her cubicle! Perfect...you can customize them!

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