Lady in Red

Haha, the below post was supposed to have been posted March 22nd. It is now April 26th....

Woah, I am so bad. It has been a month, almost to the day since my last post! But I have been crafting. So not to worry. I should have back to back posts since I now have an arsenal of projects to talk about. Today however we are discussing the continuation of decorating outlet/light switch plates.

I decided my kitchen would have a red theme, more specifically I will feature red tulips. There is something so cute and clean about tulips. Since I bought a thousand and one of these over-sized, white, cover plates its time to put them to good use.

I used a red and green paint pen (insert brand name). The surface of these cover plates, made by GE is very smooth and slick, which is good for the over all look but can be a problem. It takes a lot of control to not let the tip of the pen slip all over the place. And we all know what a pain it is to clean up paint pen ink.

Walmart ran out of the bright white cover plates so I was forced (not really I could have waited but I don't like waiting) to buy beige cover plates. They are cheaper and don't require a lot of work to get a nice white coat. Using the same Crayola brand poster/craft paint I painted the beige plate white. The rough surface of the paint makes a great base for the paint pens but it will not be shiny like the others. *note* Now that two months have gone by, much has happened in the crafting world. I have discovered brayering. So, the need for a paint brush has been eliminated. At some point I will do a red tulip on a white inked cover plate. But for now here is the finished product on the regular shiny surface.

Eventually I'll get the red tulip decals I saw on allposters.com. I like the idea of having them on the cabinets, which are all white, to give just a little pop of color and fun.

Stay crafty my friends!

Craftacular

I've moved in! Everything is in its place, sort of, and I'm exhausted. I promised to make this post about crafting, so here we go!

One of my many projects for the new place was decorative outlet covers. I bought supersized light switch plates and outlet covers at Walmart for very cheap ($.35 - $.55). I used my trusty paint pens (from JoAnn Fabrics) to create some pretty neat designs. I actually painted every cover plate for the entire apartment (I needed a procrastination tool for packing). The ones I'll feature on this post are in the living room.

Some tidbits I found out along the way:

1. when decorating a cover plate choose white as your base. i was forced to get beige for some of them and unless you're doing a very dark color on top it doesn't work so well. white on beige is difficult to get full coverage.

2. if you have paint penned the entire surface, Sharpie or Bic permanent markers work very well over the paint pen ink, they also do okay on the naked surface of the cover plate

3. even though paint pens claim not to bleed or leak, sometimes they do. keep a wet paper towel on hand to correct any mistakes due to leaking.

Overall I am very pleased with my project. They turned out really nice and add a fun touch of drama to what would otherwise be some very boring light switches and outlet covers.

Below are the living room creations :)

Stay crafty my friends!