Hello!
After staying up entirely too late Tuesday night watching season 2 of Homeland, I mustered up the energy to not snuggle with Alex for his afternoon nap and tackle a project I’ve been thinking about for months, painting my new little friend here.
I bought this little gem from a thrift store for 49 cents! I couldn’t pass it up even though I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do with it, or what it was for that matter. Anybody have a clue what that animal is? Anyways. I’ve had it in my head that I wanted it to be silver and crackly since picking it up in the fall, so here it goes!
I started with mixing up my own spectacular shade of blue. I am not a fan of the blue that I bought, so instead of spending another $1 on a new blue (because that would just be silly), I decided to mix in some black to darken it up a bit. I put one coat of that all over the mystery animal. I wasn’t trying to be perfect since this is just the part that will show through the crackle.
After letting that dry, I slapped on a coat of my Weathered Wood Crackle Medium from Michaels. This is my first time using it, so I was excited to see the results. I think I got a little excited in my application of this stuff because, after a few minutes, he had some icicle-like drips coming from his chinny-chin-chin. This stuff took forever to dry! It probably didn’t help that I was watching it dry, but wow!
Next, came my silvery top coat. I had to change my painting venue because my little “helper” woke up from nap before my crackle coat was dry! And since he woke up, there went my ability to take a picture of my work =]
And here he is! You can’t see the blue as much as I would’ve liked. Maybe I didn’t put enough of the crackle coat on? I will have to experiment with the stuff a little more to figure it out! I love the silver though! I’m still not sure if he belongs in our living room, which has a rustic nautical theme happening, or not. He might fit in better in our master bedroom. For now, he will stay in jail, on our hearth. I told him he would be safe there from my nosy curious 9 month old. He was very grateful. Nothing left out in the open is safe these days!
On another note, we had the most gorgeous sunset here in Oxford last night! I can’t remember the last time the sunset was this awesome to look at! I’m still trying to figure out how to use my camera but I thought these turned out pretty good! I wish the trees weren’t all lit up, I like the look of the silhouette trees that are farther back. I’m not really sure how to achieve that!
Hope you have a great day!
