Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Etceteras: a little birdie told me spring is coming

Can you feel it in the air? Spring is almost here.


In fact, spring is only a month away {28 days to be exact} so I need to change my little chalkboard pot to read “28 days until spring”. But that will be fun – erasing and counting down the days. When I made this little project I was tempted to bust out the spring colors but I want to use this little bird and pot year round to announce other fun things. So black, white and grey it is and I’ll add splashes of color depending on the season.

To start with, I painted an existing ceramic bird using the crackle paint method. Have you ever crackled anything? It’s really an easy process but there was a learning curve for me and it took me three tries to get the bird to crackle. I found the best method to be the Elmer’s Glue Crackle Paint method.
  1. Paint your object with a base coat. This will be the color you want to show through the cracks. I used Martha Stewart Metallic paint in Black Nickel.
  2. Once your base coat is dry, paint on Elmer’s White Glue. The thicker the coat of glue the bigger the crackles. I was hoping for a very fine crackle finish but with crackles, you get what you get.
  3. Allow to dry just slightly. Until it’s tacky and set enough to paint on a top coat. I waited 10 minutes.
  4. Paint on a top coat. I used Folkart craft paint in Ivory White.
  5. The crackles will begin to appear as the layers dry.
  6. Once the bird was completely dry, I sealed it with a gloss finish.
My first two attempts only produced a few crackles if any. There are a lot of variables to this process, how you apply the glue and how long you wait until you apply the top coat. It’s a good idea to experiment a little with the process.


Even thought the crackles weren’t very fine, I still liked how the bird turned out. It even looks like he has an eye.


I wanted to nestle my bird in something and thought a chalkboard paint pot would be fun. For this pot, I used two coats of Martha Stewart Chalkboard paint in Gray. Once the chalkboard paint is dry, you want to cure your chalkboard surface by rubbing chalk all over it. This is important so that your chalkboard surface is erasable. Once cured, you can write on it with chalk and erase it easily.


Add a little moss and some silk flowers to the pot.

And we can start counting down the days until spring {except this should read 28 days…}
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8 comments :

  1. So beautiful result with the crackle paint! Thanks for bringing some spring into my day:-)

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  2. He's gorgeous - and I'm counting down the days too!

    I'll be sharing him on my FB page later today!
    Kelly

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  3. So elegant. I love the crackled bird. I've been hooked on the glue crackle effect since the first time I tried it.

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  4. So pretty, love the crackled bird and chalkboard pot. I have never been able to crackle anything successively. It always turns out terrible.

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  5. That crackle finish is really interesting...should give it a try on something around the house! Happy spring (in 28 days...and counting down)!

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  6. Pretty birdie and project Carolyn!

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  7. Love your crackled bird vignette. I have a very informative post on my blog about using Elmer's glue for crackle, including how to get the fine, small crackle you might want. Come visit! http://makethebestofthings.blogspot.com/2010/05/crackle-finish-with-elmers-glue.html

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