Handmade paper has enjoyed quite a bit of popularity during the past few years, and there’s a product (we don’t know how “new” it is) on the market that combines the look of handmade paper with the ease of painting to create a variety of looks for trinket boxes, picture frames, scrapbooking pages and other crafts.
Paper Perfect paints are an easy way to get the look of a homemade paper finish. The paints come in pastel shades of blue, lilac, pink, yellow and green, as well as several white and natural hues.
The paints can be applied with a palette knife, sponge or brush, depending on the texture you wish to achieve.
For our sample boxes, we used the lilac and sea green shades, applied with a palette knife.
We also used some “mix-ins” – pieces of paper and dried flowers – to decorate the boxes.
To make our boxes, you’ll need a plain, round or star-shaped, paper box; paper paints; a palette knife; and mix-ins.
Begin by drawing a pencil line around the base of the box where the lid ends. This is important, as the paint will add a layer of thickness to the box base and the lid will not fit if paint is applied all the way to the top of the base.
You can start with the top or the base of the box, but in either case, spread paint on the surface with the palette knife, keeping the thickness uniform throughout.
Remember, the thicker the paint, the longer it will take to dry. A relatively thin layer (as we used on our star-shaped box) will dry much faster than a thicker layer (as we used on our round box). The instructions say between 12 and 24 hours drying time, but our round box had still not dried completely after more than 24 hours. Of course, a warm and dry environment will make a difference as well.
Immediately after the paint has been applied, add your mix-ins or other embellishments of choice.
Again, the instructions with the paper paints say that you can simply embed the embellishments into the paint and they will be secure, but our experience is that you will need to reinforce the security with a drop or two of quick-dry tacky glue.
Smaller mix-in pieces seem to stay in place with just the paint (if they are pressed into the paint with a bit of force), but the larger pieces don’t stay secure.
It only takes a couple of seconds to add the drop or two of glue, and it’s well worth the effort to avoid pieces falling off in future.
That’s all there is to it, and since we saved some space on instructions, here are a few more suggestions for using the paper paints.
* Lamp shades
* Photo albums (covers)
* Greeting cards
* Candles
* Photo frames
* Gift jars (cookies in a jar, etc.)
* Wall plaques
* Desk or vanity accessories (tissue and pencil holders, etc.)
* Bookmarks
* Recipe boxes
* Photo matting
E-mail Jonetta Coffin at jrocoffin@aol.com.
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