Playing with egg shells ......

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............. What the heck is she up to now you ask?

Does this clue help?

 OK ... I will put you out for your misery.    Having boiled some eggs, I took off the shells, gave them a wash and then put them in the oven to "cook" for about 15 minutes to remove the inner membrane.  I then applied some That's Craft Clear 3D Gloss Gel Medium to the drawers of an MDF project I had made, and stuck on the bits of shell, adding more gel medium as I went along.   I then applied another coat of the medium when all bits were stuck on.

A quick heat with a heat gun to set the gel, and then I overpainted the drawers with White Gesso, to which I had added some Brushos, to create my own chalk paint.  One had purple added and one blue.  When dry I had an idea that rather than spray with varnish I would try an experiment and add some Brushos (using same colours) to some Rustoleum Furniture Finishing Wax, which I applied with my finger.  I then buffed it with a clean cloth.   Result! 

I painted the inside of he drawers with Crystal Glitter Antique White Glitter paint, and applied the Finishing Wax to those too.  Finally I added a couple of little silk flowers to create handles.

 

Inside of Drawers

Hope you can see the sparkle.

The outside of the unit was also painted with the Antique White Crystal Glitter paint, with the addition of scarlet Brushos!   I didn't mix the colour in completely, so I got a random streak look to it.   Again finished with Wax.

Finished Unit.

 

I also had another divided unit that complemented the drawers, which again was painted with White Gesso mixed with Brushos.  The two divided units were painted the same colours as the drawer fronts, and leaf green was added for the outside of the unit.  Again finished with the furniture wax.

Once again a streaky effect to the inside.

Finally the completed units together:   (The colours are actually paler and more delicate than in the photos, but due to the rainy day photos had to be taken indoors!)

Complete unit with drawers (which are opposite colours to the top)

I want to do some sort of decoration on the green part, but I haven't yet decided what. ..... maybe a stencilled pattern, maybe some stamping, or maybe some folk art.  There is no rush.  I will finish it as and when the mood/inspiration strikes.   I want to keep it pastel and pretty.  In the meantime it looks very smart sitting on my desk, keeping some stamps and stencils neat and tidy, with some small odds and ends in the drawers that always seem to go missing - like my bone folders for starters!

 

Space Project

Today I am sharing one of my 6 year old granddaughter's effort - her space project for school.   She came up with the idea of what she wanted to do - and her father came up with a way of illuminating it.

This was nearly all her own work.   She made the planets from Hearty Air Dry Clay, and painted them with watercolours following a chart from the internet.  Making them as as realistic in size as she could - though Jupiter and Saturn should be a lot larger in comparison, but had to be realistic with the size of box she was working in (one from her own shoes).  She threaded the planets on some black fishing line (courtesy of a friend of her mother).  She painted the shoe box with black sparkly paint  for the night sky and added a few drops of glue and some and some glitter for even more stars. 

The sun was created from some old packaging, which she paint with clear gesso and alcohol inks.

She needed a little help creating the holder for the torch, which was created from some more packaging; and she needed a little help from her cousin and me to wield the hot glue gun to stick it to the box ..... and to cut the hole in the box with a stanley knife. For safety reasons, I think that is allowed.  (The torch shines through the side of the box and the sun.

Note the rings on Saturn - created by cutting out the shape in clay with two bottle tops!  Also the Earth has its moon (confess an inspiration of mine in the middle of the night to use a map pin - and her aunt came to the rescue with one!)

I hope you agree that she had made a brilliant job of it.

Paianted Stones

I decided to give a couple of my large stones a facelift, as they had been outside for a few years, and the paint had weathered.   Painted with Crystal Glitter paint, and then one stroke folk art painted using the paint fusion technique with acrylic paint, and then varnished.

Sunshine and a bit of Paint Fusion!

How lovely to be able to sit in the sun and paint.   Having been good and done a lot of digging and weeding yesterday,  I rested the ol' bones today and sat and revamped my hanging baskets and a planter ready for the new plants I bought at the weekend.

side view

 The last time I painted these was 6 years ago - and as they had been out all winter, they were looking a bit "tired" and some of the paint had faded.   To start with I gave them a coat of black crystal glitter paint, which is a black paint with silver glitter in it  (I say silver, there are also flecks of blue in it; and they also make one which has gold, red and green glitter in it. which I have also used).

The paint is great suitable for outdoors, has a rust preventer in it, and can be used on almost any surface - plastic, brick, glass, ceramics, teracotta etc.  (Yes there may be a lot of make-overs to the pots in my garden.

I then used the new Sheena Douglass Paint Fusion paints, which have been are actually made by Pebeo, for the decoration,   Although the black paint is suitable for outside, I did give the "Fusion" painting a quick spray with Spray and Shine varnish, to help protect it - well it seemed to work pretty well for the past six years - lol!

The crystal glitter was also applied to the chains to prevent them rusting, and I quick coat was also applied to the brackets as they were looking a tad rusty.

Just for reference here are a couple of photos of what one of the baskets and a bracket looked like before I started you can see the fading of the paint over the past six years.  (ok this one was a slightly different colour last time, as I did them all different last time and this time I painted them all the same).

How rusty? looks a tad different now