Painted Collage

Remember that collage I did for Craft-a-Palooza? Well, I finally decided what to do with it. One of my favorite animals is a duck so I decided to paint a duck on my collage! Since I used mod podge (AKA shiny, school glue based paste) I needed to use acrylic. Oil could've worked as well. Using a small paint brush, I free handed the outline of a duck. First I tried black but that just blended into the background. Then I decided to go with white. I covered the black outline with white then filled it in.

I had to paint a couple of layers to completely cover up the background and blend in the brush strokes. Easy beezy cute collage!

Craft-A-Palooza: Shaving Cream Painting

This is my last Craft-A-Palooza! How sad. This one is very fun for both you and the kids. I got this idea from Little Wonders' Days. You need shaving cream, paint and card stock.
On a plate or a pan, get a nice layer of shaving cream. Smooth it out with a spoon or other utensil. Now here's the fun part.

Add some acrylic paint (any color and amount will do) and swirl it into the shaving cream. You don't need to do this too deep into the shaving cream. The marbleized it looks, the cooler you paper will turn out.

Now taking card stock or any sturdy paper, press it down into the paint and shaving cream design then pull it up carefully. Let it stand for a minute or so.

Next, using another piece of paper or squeegee, remove the paint and shaving cream.

 Your paper should now be tye dyed and ready for you to cut out fun shapes and patterns!

Wayward Tip: So I learned the hard way not to cut out the shapes and then dip your paper. I also learned when you are scraping off the excess paint and shaving cream, do it on one movement and in one direction. Also, use something bigger than the paper you are removing the extra off of...

Craft-A-Palooza: Collage Painting

So I made the collage for Craft-A-Palooza and then I made another one. This time I wanted to do something I saw on Pinterest but not exactly copy it. They took a collage, covered part with a stencil and then panted over the rest. It was quite pretty but I didn't want a bird. So I chose a bear. I Googled animal silhouettes and found one I liked. I adjusted the picture to the size I wanted (print preview helps you gauge the size) then printed it out.

Then using my mom's sticker maker machine thing-a-ma-jig I made it into a sticker. Strategically placing my bear silhouette, I stuck it to the dry collage. Side note: I spent a lot of time and effort to make one spot on my board look good since the rest was going the be painted and wouldn't show. I just left the part I knew would be painted boring.The mod podge glue was slick enough the sticker would be easily removable.

Then I painted over the whole board. I could've been a little more careful around the edge of the sticker. A little bit of paint went under the edges but oh well. After the paint dries (either mostly or all the way) I took off the sticker. And voila, a collage painting!

Here's a tip:
If you want texture when doing mod podge, allow there to be air pockets or wrinkles in the paper. If you want it to be smooth, good luck! Just kidding. Apply the mod podge all the same direction (to the left or up or whatever.) Also, apply smaller piece since it's easy to get air out if it gets under there. When applying pieces, start from one side and work to the other. If you do all the edges then the middle, you're going to have some air under there. When you paint over the collage you can see the texture a whole lot better.

Craft-A-Palooza: Collage

The first craft I did during Craft-A-Palooza was a collage. Since I still had some old gossip magazines, I thought it would be perfect to rip them up and use them. Collages are pretty simple to do. I decided to rip pieces instead of cut them out to give it a different look. I also went the long time consuming route and organized all my pieces by color to make sure I evenly distributed colors on my canvas board.
All you need (is love) is mod podge or watered down glue, a canvas board, and lots of ripped pictures from magazines. Fashion magazines or magazines covering red carpet events are great because they offer a lot of different patterns and fabrics that you could use. I avoided using people's faces or body as much as I could. First, I covered the board making sure to get the edges. Paint a layer of mod podge on the board then lay down your pieces. Try to get all the area coated in mod podge to avoid air bubbles. I chose colorful pages in case the background showed some after covering the board.

 (yes, that's Zac Efron's attractive little face)

After letting that dry I started putting on the pieces one at a time first applying mod podge then placing the pieces over the wet area. I painted another layer of the pieces to make sure they stuck and other pieces would stick if they overlapped.

I filled up the whole board which took quite a while since I was being very meticulous. And just like that, you have a wonderful collage.

You could also do it in a color theme (ie warm colors, cool colors, secondary colors etc.) I think maybe I'll do that next....when I get a break in homework!

Craft-a-Palooza

The week between Christmas and New Year's, my mom, sister and I had a Craft-a-Palooza. What is Craft-a-Palooza? How dare you not know, just kidding, it's a day we set aside to craft all day. Really it was to help me out since I have practically no crafting supplies or time when I'm at school. So for Christmas my mom gave Brooke and I (the ones who were home for Christmas and Craft-a-Palooza) $10 gift cards to Michaels. We then set aside a day and time to have our grand party. On the big day, we came together (really Brooke came to our house) with ideas (mostly from Pinterest) and began our adventure at Michaels. When we got back home with some supplies, we got out paint, glue, tools, all that jazz and went to work. It was a good day with lots of crafting, some frustration, and Christmas cookies. It was a day well spent! Here's a preview of what goodies I will be showing in the near future and PB:

Craft-a-Palooza was very fun. If you ever want to have a crafting party, do it! Send out invitations to your crafting or non-crafting friends. Have a Craft-a-Palooza of your very own!

PS any guesses as to what on earth I did in Craft-a-Palooza (my sisters and mother are omitted from this guessing!)