A friend is going through a rough time and was talking about re-doing her bedroom to turn it into a pretty, pink, relaxing sanctuary. She is doing this on a budget and I thought I could make her something to go on a wall which would help both money-wise and in showing my support.
I had three pre-cut wooden words that have been sitting waiting for me to do something with them for ages. They were 50p each from Hobbycraft. The answer was not to try covering them in patterned paper as it creates a sticky mess and so I ended up painting them. The pearlescent paint (on the right) actually comes out very thin so they each needed several coats with a very dry brush.
Given that one word developed a crack and was somewhat fragile I decided they needed to be mounted on something solid for support. Originally I had thought of hanging them off a ribbon but I started experimenting and came up with this:
I used glue dots to temporarily attach the ribbon to the words and then borrowed Mum's notice board to try it out. The ribbon and card on the side are possible components.
As it was a day that I'd had codeine I couldn't use my car to go anywhere and get supplies so I thought laterally and took a mounted photo out of its pale wood frame and cut a piece of mount board to the correct size as the background. I used the kitchen floor, two cutting mats side by side and my metal edged ruler to do this however, even with a ruler, I cannot manage to cut a straight line so it took a few attempts. As mount board is so thick you need to cut the same line several times before it is done. You can obtain it from pretty much any art shop, I think my A2 sheet was £4.50. I've used part of it for miniature furniture making after I came across this blog
http://1inchminisbykris.blogspot.co.uk/ The rest of the sheet has lived in the boot of my car until now.
I then went and looked for some paint and found a tin of pale pink. After phoning Mum I discovered that I wouldn't need white spirit to clean the brush afterwards (apparently that is only for gloss paint) so it didn't matter that I couldn't find any. She also suggested watering the paint down slightly in an old ice cream box so there would be less chance of brush marks showing on my background.
It came out a very pale pink and I did three coats to try and darken it slightly. I was on the kitchen floor again but this time with a messy mat. The board obviously got quite damp with the paint and curled more than I was expecting so I did sit there for some of the time, watching the paint dry, as I tried to hold it down slightly. Once the paint was dry I put it all together but it doesn't look finished so it is sitting there waiting for me to decide what else to do with it. I'm thinking butterflies?
To be continued...
