Fine Craft Guild .com » Painting

New Year Umbria Jazz Festival

Fine Craft Guild — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 12:55:00 +0000

Happy New Year from Italy!!! We were partying here on the first day of the New Year.

Umbria Jazz Festival is held every year around this time in the gorgeous Italian city of Orvieto. As this year, New Year’s day fell on a Sunday we enjoyed the happy opportunity to actually go see it and enjoy Funkoff jazz band live parading, playing, and dancing through the street. Funky!!

I taped it, so you can hear them too!

For more info: Umbria Jazz ~ Orvieto’s annual New Year Jazz Fest

Orvieto is also famous for its delicacies, which range from rare black truffles, divine olive oil to top Italian wines. On New Year’s day, on the menu of many restaurants and on all dinner tables at home featured a traditional Italian comfort-food dish that is to bring both luck and prosperity.

What Italians eat at New Year
(click link to see)

Artistically, Orvieto is known for its hand-decorated ceramics. While we might think that all these gorgeous Italian table settings are made in Florence, realize that Orvieto hosts the skilled Italian artisans that we all know so well. Have a look…

Italian Hand-decorated Ceramics
(click link for beautiful photos)

Overall, Orvieto is an amazing cultural center, that dates back to Etruscan times. It’s perched upon a volcanic flat, high up in the sky. Its most visible magnificent art center piece is the monumental 14th century cathedral. Its most famous hidden secret is the original underground Etruscan city. For trip and vacation info and gorgeous travel photos, from now on, visit our other site, http://www.TravelTripVacation.com, where we’ll host more of our travel info, to keep FineCraftGuild purely about art and fine craft.

Stamps :: 10 Useful Ways

Fine Craft Guild — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 12:37:00 +0000

Transforming old artwork with a fresh new layer is easily fixed with some artistic use of stamps. However, this is not the only way to make stamps useful. There are many around-the-house & craft uses of stamps where they proof to be oh so handy.

10 Ways to Apply Stamps Usefully

1. Instant birthday card or thank you-card

2. instant book cover paper

3. Instant book marks

4. Instant personalized stationary

5. Spruce up your art journal or notebook with the occasional (inspirational quote) stamp on selected pages

6. Letter stamps are great to make labels for art storage boxes

7. Stamp inspirational words and giant flowers with textile paint on plain towels

8. Create your own logo and stamp it on things you make.

9. Hide stains on kids cloths with a simple dash of textile paint and some stamps of flowers & butterflies, trains or toys.

10. Personalize a kids lunchbox with the same stamp on the outside name tag, napkin and the ‘how to use’ wrapper around the food boxes for the kindergarten staff.

I’m sure I could keep on going with this list… How about you:

How do you solve your ‘daily’ problems with stamps?

Get Your Own Butterfly Stamp Set

Stamps offer a versatile way for a 100+ uses.

I highly recommend this set of

Butterfly Rubber Stamp Set By Cavallini & Co.

One of Many Stamp Sets Available Here

Professional quality stamps for scrapbooking & otherwise. They also have a beautiful complementary birds stamp set

Also see…

Stamping :: Simple Painting Technique

Fine Craft Guild — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 12:30:00 +0000

Once you start stamping, there is no stopping, is there? That’s what I found at least. Last night I was preparing for this weekend’s art demonstration. I was using some watercolor paintings in the category ‘misfits & unfinished works’ as the base for some fresh Spring artwork to bring along.

What did I do, besides bringing my white & other color acrylics out? I roamed through my ‘stencils & stamps’-box to find a gorgeous giant butterfly stamp. After softening the prior work with some pastel tints & layering color washes, I applied happy orange acrylic paint on the stamp and stamped the butterflies right on top of each artwork.

Instant Spring…. and almost Summer !

I’m not quite done yet, but you can see it shaping up.

Like it?

(Sorry, no ‘before’ picture of those ‘misfit/unfinished’ works of art.

I guess this is art article, rather than craft-post: when I do art, I do what I like;
no planning .)

Here’s my gem of a stamp:

Yes, just a kid toy stamp.

If you want your own, …

Get Your Butterfly Stamp Set here:

Butterfly Rubber Stamp Set By Cavallini & Co.
One of Many Stamp Sets Available Here

Fixing-up old artwork (misfitting/unfinished works) is not the only way to use stamps and stencils. Here are some more:

10 Quick Ways to Make Stamps Useful

Also see…

Build Your Own Birdhouse

Fine Craft Guild — Tue, 17 May 2011 15:53:00 +0000

This adorable birdhouse is the culmination of a few different craft techniques: creating floral wall art from toilet paper rolls, making a beaded accent charm, and painting, stenciling and decorating a birdhouse.

What makes this wall decoration work is repetition of color, shape and pattern.

The How-to

How to Make Toilet Paper Roll Flowers

1. Mix red and white tempura and paint the toilet paper rolls. Let it dry. Repeat as is needed to give a nice coverage.

2. Flatten 3 toilet paper rolls lengthwise, and cut them in 1/3 of an inch circular strips.

3. Staple 5 together for the medium sized flower; staple 8 together for a large flower and staple 1 onto the middle of a second ring for the lotus flower bud.

4. These three flowers were originally designed as a mobile where the flowers hang below each other, and the end piece is a grouping of a few beads to give it the weight required to hang straight down. (Note: toilet paper rolls are very light). I just used simple sewing thread and tied the beaded accent charm * on first, and then looped the thread through each toilet paper roll flower, allowing a bit of spacing in between each flower. I made a loop at the end of the thread to hang the flower mobile up.

For this wall vignette, I simply ‘draped’ the flowers mobile over the birdhouse.

* How to Make a Beaded Charm

Simple. String several beads of different sizes & materials with compatible colors onto a metal pin and with your jewelry supplies, create a loop at the end of the pin and clip of the excess metal. In this case, I’ve uses a glass bead at the bottom, then a hand-painted wooden bead, a midsized glass bead and a smaller glass bead.

How to Paint a Wooden Birdhouse

1. Decide on a color scheme and style for the house.
We wanted a whimsical, girly design and very pink approach to decorating here. But you might like to choose something more rustic, classic or romantic ! The actual decoration design is up to you.

2. First lightly sand the store-bought birdhouse form. Apply a coat of white as a grounding. We used simple tempura.

3. For the second coat of paint, mix your paint to achieve the right shade. Always remember that paint becomes lighter when dry.

4. We choose to accentuate the shape of the birdhouse with our decorations.

5. Our stencil: we chose the flat end of a pencil to be our stencil. It was lightly dipped in tempura paint to create our polka dots. To create smooth dots, roll your pencil lightly in your fingers when holding it against the surface of the object to be painted. This will create a smooth round edge.

If …

you are planning to hang your birdhouse outside, place it in a protected area so that the birds will be safe, plus use durable materials that are non-toxic for birds.

Craft Materials Needed

1. Toilet Paper rolls.

2. Tempura paint to paint the rolls.

3. Stapler

4. Beads & thread.

5. Unfinished wooden bird house (Click for 4 pack of quality birdhouses in which birds actually like to nest, but which you can also paint and use inside for decoration. ) For indoor use, you can also use a paper Mache birdhouse kit.

6. Stencils & Paint Brushes.

7. Sealer, acrylics paint & Varnish. Liquitex Acrylics Paint, or even folk art paint, will do the job just fine for a decorative birdhouse that’s mostly kept indoors or protected outside.

Indoor vs.. Outdoor Birdhouses

For a birdhouse you wish to enjoy outdoors, you’ll need completely different materials. Give your bird house a (white) base coat to seal the wood. Then paint over it using either an acrylics paint for detailed decoration, or an outdoor paint in case you do not want to embellish it too much. If you’ve painted your birdhouse with acrylic paint, you should really give your birdhouse one or two coats of protective varnish at the end.

Note that exterior house paint is much harder to work with than water-based tempura or acrylics. If you use that, you should keep your design simple and perhaps even leave your birdhouse plain after giving it one or two coats of color. Painting tip: choose painting products (base coat, paint and varnish) which are compatible with each other.

Protect your birdhouse and protect your birds: place the birdhouse where it is a bit protected from the elements and from predator animals.

Additional Resources

Making & Painting
Victorian Birdhouses

20 Upscale Homes
for Sophisticated Birds

Folk Art Acrylic-Paint

Liquitex Acrylics Paint Set

Birdhouse Construction

Birdhouses you can Paint & Decorate

Birdhouses You Can
Build in a Day

Build Your Own Birdhouse Kits

There are several styles of ‘Build your own birdhouse’-kits that you can buy.

Tip: If you buy the cheapy ‘build your birdhouse’-kits with the paint included, you are advised to also order an extra tube of white or your favorite color as these kits usually come with way to little paint to cover the whole birdhouse. Not a problem if you know this in advance and can make up for it.

Also see: Eco Friendly DIY garden projects Ideas & tutorials,

including a really cute eco-friendly Bird Feeder.

How-to: Painted Leather Purse

Fine Craft Guild — Tue, 10 May 2011 12:59:00 +0000

In love with Anuschka hand-painted leather bags??! Then you’ll be interested in the leather painting tutorial that I’m featuring today.

Learn how to Paint Leather Bags, Belts & Other Accessories

Painting leather goods is one of the traditional art forms that Italy is famous for. Here you can find the most exquisite leather bags, belts and other personal leather ware that’s exquisitely hand-embellished.

Virtuoso aside, many of us could create a reasonable result by hand painting a vintage leather bag, be that either a ‘Goodwill’- find, an ‘out-of-date’ Dolce Gabbana bag, or a Morrocan tooled leather bag.

(Tip: If you are an absolute beginner painter and wish to work with a new bag that’s easy to paint, choose a tooled bag with existing shapes and forms already on it. )

What you’ll Need

Tooled leather handbag
Lumiere paint by Jacquard
Water-based varnish
Paintbrushes
Stencil Paper, pencil and white chalk pencil
Embellishments: Costume and vintage jewelry pieces, decorative chain, rhinestones, beads, findings, etc.
Devcon Flow-Mix 60-second epoxy
E-6000 glue

How to Make Your Own Painted Leather Handbag

1. Decide which outfits your bag is to match with and what style of painting you wish. Then, choose a color scheme and a bag style, and order your materials online.

2. Depending on how experienced a painter you are, you may wish to try out different color combinations in watercolor on art paper, so see which effects you prefer. Such hand-drawn sketches make great gift note cards, btw…

3. First paint your background and then overlay the design and then do your detailing last. For the bag background, you’ll use your biggest brush. For the bigger lines, it’s best to use mid-sized brushes. Leave your fine brushes alone till the very end, when you’ll be doing the detailing of the bag design. Make sure your brushes are clean, and choose rather soft rather than brittle brushes as you’ll see some of the brush strokes on your bag. You want it to look smooth overall.

When planning your 3 painting phases, realize that some colors may require several coats of paint. Allow for drying time, as well as contemplation time. This is not a project to rush.

3a. When choosing a tooled leather bag, it’s really easy: just following the lines of the tooled design, fill in with colors and add details when flat fields of color are dry.

3b. If you use a non-tooled leather bag, I suggest you first create your design in pencil on transfer paper. This transfer paper design can then be used as a stencil.

To use it as a stencil, on the reverse side of the paper, fill in your design lines with a white chalk pencil. Then overlay the stencil flat on your leather bag (with the chalked side toward the bag) and rub firmly with your nail (or an equivalent firm tool) till the chalk design is applied to your bag.

Stencils are particularly useful for fast application of recurring motifs. You can do the background of these motifs with a stencil and then detail them freehand. Now, if you are an experienced artist, I don’t need to tell you anything: just go ahead and paint your style, your way.

4. When your paint is dry, seal the bag with two coats of water-based varnish. This will protect the paint and avoid later watermarks on your design.

5. If you wish, you could take highlight your design a little more and embellish your bag with costume and vintage jewelry pieces. 60-second epoxy is good for large and heavy embellishments, and E-6000 glue for the smaller embellishments. For extra glitter and fancy, consider bead or rhinestone chains for edges and flaps, straps or handles.

6. Allow bag to sit undisturbed while the glue sets (at least 24 hours) before using.

Howto Paint a Leather Bag Video

How to create a ‘follow-the-line’ leather painting design on a tooled leather bag can be found here. It features how to personalize vintage handbags with paint and embellishments with tips from designers Melissa Neufeld and Chris Janze.

Where to Find

There’s a huge collection of tooled leather handbags in all shapes and forms on eBay. Lumiere paint by Jacquard, watercolor sketching, transfer paper, and white chalk pencils are available at Blick Art Materials. JW Right-Step water-based varnish in Gloss, Devcon Flow-Mix epoxy and Eclectic Products adhesive glue is available on Amazon.

Tip: Blick Art Materials 80% Off

This deal is soo amazing that I’d like to share it with you. Not everything is 80% off, but lots is. To join the fun, visit our beloved Dick Blick art store: Blick Art Materials Special Savings through May 18th, 2011!

Photo credits: stenciling (Kristine Mueller), tooled leather bag designs (Martha Stewart), Handpainted leather bag with lotus (Anuschka), and D&G Snow White Painted Leather Wristlet(Dolce & Gabbana).

Kitchen Island :: Paint Makeover

Fine Craft Guild — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 13:55:00 +0000

This before/after story is a little inspiration for us all. The story goes: dream, and just begin, and the results will be lovely… I mean: Love the smokey teal color of this unique one-of-a-kind kitchen island. It’s funky, it’s stylish, and with the new teal makeover, it’s now also classy chic.

The BEFORE

Or rather: ‘The sanded kitchen island before version’ and ‘The whitish kitchen island before version in the context of the whole kitchen’

The INSPIRATION

Agatha was inspired by this green kitchen table. The teal of the table is a good color-addition to the overall white/brown color scheme of the kitchen. I like it!

Funky kitchen overall.

The AFTER

This great kitchen island makeover is the work of Agatha, from Audistree at Blogspot

. I call it ‘teal’, but she has nuances up her sleeve and explained that the paint color is ‘village green’ ( …. Mmm, romantic). To finish it of, she glazed & sealed the island with a paste wax. Some more minor details and the bar stools still have to be finished, but we could not wait for that. I wanted to show this to you today, so you would dare to tackle a paint job in your home over the weekend (wink)

More Furniture Ideas

Review all our fine & contemporary furniture: recycling & other ideas, project plans & tutorials

Free Paint for Your Home Decor Projects

Fine Craft Guild — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 18:30:00 +0000

If you want to do a test run of a paint color scheme, or just do a simple stencil painting project, then this paint freebie is exactly what you’ve been looking for.

Free Paint Sample Kit, with $5 Lowe Discount Coupon

You can choose from ‘ooos of rich, beautiful colors to receive a free sample. The kit comes with rollers and all. Available daily while supplies last. They offer a 1000 free samples every day, starting at 9 am in the morning.

Click here now:

Free Paint Sample

Create Cool Child Bedroom Furniture w Stencils (DIY Tutorial)

Fine Craft Guild — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 13:52:00 +0000

** How to Stencil Furniture. ** Lovely. Fun. Doable. Those are the three worlds … I mean words… that come to mind when I saw this dresser make-over. You love it also?

Image source: Lena Corwin, via Etsy.

Free Tutorial On Hand-Printing Your Cabinet

This design & tutorial for this contemporary, whimsical dresser is by talented artist Lena Corwin.

Materials Needed to Do this Dresser Stenciling Project

   * A piece of furniture to stencil, (old pieces should be sanded or stripped)
    * white latex primer paint
    * white semi-gloss paint
    * contact paper
    * a contrasting color of latex paint
    * roller paintbrush, pencil, craft, knife, scissors, painters tape
    * to download those lovely chubby moose and their animal chums

This free DIY tutorial comes with free downloadable flower designs and animal stencils. Easy to use: print, cut and apply.

Printing by Hand

Lena is also author of Printing by Hand: A Modern Guide to Printing with Handmade Stamps, Stencils, and Silk Screens. This furniture stenciling project is one of the projects featured in this already very popular book. This book would make a great gift, and I already ordered it for XMAS, yes, for myself.

Also see our prior article on KIDS FURNITURE with beautiful ideas!

Face Painting Designs, Ideas & Examples

Fine Craft Guild — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 19:47:00 +0000

Make-Up That Makes A Masterpiece

The key to making a master face painting and a perfect disguise is in the preparation.

Besides designing the face painting to suit the Halloween costume, the theme character, plus the shape of the face, there are other considerations ~ not in the least is deciding which face painting to buy. This article is to give you some designs, ideas and great Halloween Face Painting examples.

FACE PAINTING MATERIALS NEEDED

* Skin moisturizer

* Face Paint

* Face Painting Brush

* Face Painting (or cosmetics) small, clean sponge

* Jar of Warm Water

* Cotton Swabs optional

* Face Painting Design (your own designs or those from a great book such as this Klutz book called ‘Face Painting ‘ which comes with a set of non-toxic, water soluble face paint, made by a leading manufacturer of theatre make-up. Great instructions in this book, btw for a range of awesome looking faces. I love the Klutz series of children books: they make everything fun, easy, doable and add a lot of sophistication to an otherwise plainer crafting experience.

(BTW. This Usborne Book of Face Painting (How to Make) is pretty good also. It does not come with paint however, but it’s inexpensive and the face painting design in this book are great.

TIP: if you are painting your Halloween faces during a party, you will need to have a set repertoire of designs that your party guests can choose from. This way, it will be more ‘do-able’ as face painting can be time consuming and you will want to be able to do many of them, particularly during the first part of the party.

Skin Protecting Foundation

First things first: protect your skin.

Do so prior to using heavy make-up and face paint during Halloween. It’s recommended to put a light moisturizer on that will gently keep your skin from drying out beneath the make-up. Or, if you prefer, apply a light coat of Vaseline, to keep the face paints and heavy make-up from ruining their skin.

Apply a base make-up all over your face and neck before using bolder colors and techniques.

Face Painting Materials

With so many different face paint brands to choose from, look for keywords on the label like: safe, sensitive skin, hypo-allergenic, removable, and approved. This is particularly important for make-up for children and teenagers, who tend to have ultra-sensitive skin. If you wear contact lenses make sure the products you use are user-friendly and safe for contact lens wearers.

Old-Age Effect

There are a few steps to creating a realistic looking ‘old age’-effect:

Step 1: Scrunch-up your face first, to emphasize your “natural” wrinkles. Apply make-up that is lighter than your natural skin-tone. Work on small areas at a time for optimal results.

Step 2: Then, “de-scrunch” and fill in the creases in your skin by using a soft brown eye-liner pencil. Create sunken-cheeks by darkening the cheek hollows. Emphasize the creases around your nose and darken along your jaw line.

Step 3: Create crow’ feet near your eyes (with the pencil).

Step 4: Pucker your lips to create wrinkles around your mouth the same way. Be sure to add liver spots, broken capillaries for the full effect.

TIP: Use the same techniques on your hands to keep the theme all over.

When you are all done, powder all over with baby powder to set your make-up and give a dry-cracked skin appearance. You can also use baby powder in your hair for a graying effect.

Five O’clock Shadow

Burn a piece of cork and rub on the lower portion on your face in the shape of a beard. Create stubble by using ground coffee or tea stuck onto your skin with eyelash adhesive.

Facial Hair

Cut some fur off of an old stuffed animal and apply over face with eyelash adhesive. Apply a simple, light-weight mustache with a mascara wand.

Ghoulish Skin

For skin that actually peels and falls off, use any type of peel-off facial mask, which can be found in most drug stores.

Clean and Clear

It is kind of common to make the mistake of not properly cleansing your face after make-up removal. Pay attention to this however, as costume and theatre make-up can wreak havoc on sensitive skin. Always remember to gently remove any make-up, cleanse with a cleanser that is ideal for your skin type and follow up with a mild-astringent to remove any access residue.

With these great tips in place, you’ll have make-up that will make a lasting impression.

Image credit:

Absolutely stunning Indian goddess aka flower girl face & old devil face painting designs by kat-kraft.co.uk

Boy pirate face with scar and red bandana & spider girl face designs by www.facepaintingdesigns.co.uk.

Halloween Central

For more Halloween costume and decorations ideas, visit our ‘Halloween Central’.

Art in Paris

Fine Craft Guild — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 13:00:00 +0000

It’s not what you think. No art deco here, ma’am. Manhole mandalas, that’s art, instead.

Yesterday, I spotted this post by Laurie of Scene of the Grime (fun name) popping a manhole cover (roadside find) into her car. It was going to survive the junkyard and live as decoration in her backyard. A cool decorative vignette indeed.

It reminded me of ….

Last year, we rented an apartment in Paris, France, (oh la la) from a cash strapped musician. His artistic endeavors were everywhere in that funky apartment.

And at some point in his life he must have been manhole-obsessed, as several of his walls were covered with large manhole artworks. I dubbed the term ‘manhole mono-prints’. He must have taken huge sheets of art paper, (water-based?) paint or ink, and a big bush along and went to town. Covering manholes with ink and pressing his big sheets of aquarelle paper over them. You could tell he’d experimented with different papers and inks.

Here’s one of my photos. In my mind’s eye could see mono-prints in a range of bright colors, and of a range of designs. Like huge mandalas.

Just to entertain you, I’ve just hand tinted (thank you, Photoshop) one version, so you get a feel for what I’m on about..

(click image for larger version to print)

Like ‘m?

Wanna have a go at making these? ???!!

Something else to do in town,

besides summer sale shopping.