Masking tape is very useful for this. Stick the tape along the line, then paint right up to it. You can paint a little over the edge. Wait for the paint to dry completely, then pull off the tape and you will have a perfectly straight line. This is a good way to paint shapes like triangles and diamonds.
Don’t throw away your egg cartons as they can be used as an art pallete. You need not spend money to buy pallete anymore 😀 Recycle is the way to go 🙂
Painting is so much fun. What do you do if you need to put down your brush for a moment while you take a break or two?
Don’t just put them on the table and risk them rolling off or anything similar to that. Cut an egg carton and use it as a brush holder. This way, your brush is kept in place until you are ready to resume your painting. Don’t even bother to paint or decorate the egg carton as after sometime, it will have its own unique mixture of colours 😀
Though we love to recycle old bottles or tins for crafts, they are often covered with labels which are sometimes hard to take off. The easiest way to do this is to fill a washing-up bowl with some warm water and soak the bottle in the water for ten minutes. The label should peel off very easily.
Or you might want to try applying a thick coat of cooking oil onto the label. Let the oil soak in overnight. Peel the label off. You may need to reapply oil onto sticky or partly dissolved glue that remain. Once the label is completely removed, wash with warm soapy water. You’ll get squeeky clean bottles or tins 😀
When painting round objects, like an egg, a ball or toilet paper roll, it helps to rest it on a holder so it won’t roll off.
It also helps to ensure it stays in place and not roll around when it is drying.
Mugs and egg cartons make excellent holders 🙂
PVA glue can also be used to make varnish, which will help protect the surface of many of your projects. A shiny, varnished effect looks really professional. Mix the glue with one third the amount of water. The varnish will look a bit white when you paint it on, but when it dries it will be clear.
PVA glue – Is also known as white glue, school glue or wood working glue. It is water-based; your hands and brushes come clean easily under the tap. PVA glue sticks most things together – wood, cardboard, paper, cloth and plastic.
It is great for applying glitter too. Just mix it in and paint it. You can apply the glue with either a paintbrush or a glue spreader. PVA glue mixed with water is perfect for papier-mache and the glue can be undiluted on parts that need extra strength.
Coming up.. other usage of PVA glue. Stay tuned 🙂
You know I do a lot of hand and foot painting with my boy. When it’s time to wash his hands or feet, it is such a hassle if I need to grab hold of a soap bar or squeeze some out of a bottle.
What I normally do is to wash and decorate my empty shower gel bottles and refill them with handwash liquid.
I have a bottle in every corner of my house! Just kidding 😀 I only have them in every corner of the washroom 😛
Each time we drive through McD, we’ll get a tray to hold the drinks. Do you know they make great holder for some art items? I used them to hold my tempera paste 😀
When doing art work or crafting, a hair dryer can come in handy at times. Sometimes the paint or glue take too long to dry. Use a hair dryer to expedite the drying process. Invest in the most basic hair dryer as all you need it to do is blow dry 😀
Ever tried painting with your toddlers? Remember the mess they can create? How often do they tear the paper when they kept on painting on the same spot and that spot became soggy and weak? When doing a paint project with your toddlers, it’s good to use paper plates instead of drawing paper as paper plate is much thicker to prevent from tear resulting from too much handling.
Paint a paper plate 🙂
Do you have difficulty making a heart? I mean, do you find it hard to draw a heart that looks even on both sides? You might find that one side is bigger than the other or loop sided or anything else. It is actually very simple to make a symmetrical heart shape. Let’s do it now 🙂
Get a piece of paper.
Cut out the shape of half a heart.
There, your symmetrical heart shape. It can never be too ugly no matter what 😛
Personalized Drinking Glasses
Having a party? Help your guests identify their glasses with personalized drinking glasses. You need not go to the extreme of ordering engraved drinking glasses with names on it. Cut cost and use ribbons to tie a name tag around the glass instead 🙂
Personalised Drinking Glasses
You'll need drinking glasses, ribbons, craft scissors, cards with names printed on it and a punch hole
Cut the name using the craft scissors. Punch a hole at the side and run the ribbon through it. Tie around the glass.
You are now ready to enjoy your drink with your personalized glass 😀
Learn the different methods to design a mug and we’ll help you print it.
Don’t throw out your old bottles of nail polish! They can be used for all kinds of crafts. You can paint plastic plant pots. Just mix different colors all together and the outcome is awesome! Your imagination is the limit and you can basically do anything with it! Jazz up old earrings, ornaments, shoes; anything that can be “sponge” painted. Have fun 🙂
Come share your craft tips and tricks with us here 🙂
When mixing colors for painting, the fundamental rule is that there are three colors that cannot be made by mixing other colors together. These three colors are red, blue and yellow; known as the primary colors.
Primary color wheel
Secondary Colors
If you mix two primary colors together, you create what is called a secondary color.
Blue + Red = Purple
Red + Yellow = Orange
Yellow + Blue = Green
The colour wheel can be seen below and this can be used to help remember primary and secondary colours. The secondary colours are in between the primary colours – for example – between red and blue is purple. Quite simply, mixing the primary colours of red and blue paint together will produce the secondary colour purple.
secondary color wheel chart
An important rule of the color wheel is that colours opposite to each other on the color wheel usually work well together as a colour scheme. These are known as COMPLEMENTARY COLOUR.
Tip: It takes only a little of a dark color to change a light color, but it takes considerably more of a light color to change a dark one.
Get your colors out today and try mixing until you get the desired results 🙂
* Take a piece of aluminum foil and punch your craft punch through it several times in order to sharpen the edges. Then try the punch on a thicker paper like cardstock to see if it cuts more easily.
* If that doesn’t do the trick you can gently sand the edges of your punch with fine sand paper on each side to make them sharper.
* Punch your craft punch through a piece of wax paper several times to lubricate the punch and clean off any adhesive residue.
Have great craft tips and tricks to share? Submit it here and together, we learn and share 🙂
Always sign and date your labors of love. Many years from now, it’s hard to remember who took the time to create their “labor of love” and when. Looking back at all the crafts are like going down memory lane, sentimental and emotional 🙂
Let’s share your craft tips and tricks with us here 🙂 We learn, we share 🙂
