WW: Pantone Cabbage {Linky}

I cut this cabbage, but it reminded me of a paint swatch. It's a Pantone Cabbage.  

Wagner Smart Roller Review

Recently we've had a few house updates. Both boys needed a room update. 

Mica's always been the type that just has never cared if anything is updated. Reason...he knows it requires work. Can we say, "LAZY"? I think most kidadults would skip out on making things look better if they knew it required work. 

Mica wanted a space theme that's graphic. We struggled because I pictured a galaxy, or star star wall. He wanted an exploding earth. Then I got him a starry bed spread. I'm thinking of getting him a starry blanket to cover his chair too.

Main Color: Red-Orange

Now that Travis and I basically have opposite working schedules, it was hard getting Mica's room done. We had most of Mica's room in our living room, for three weeks.  

I taught Mica how to roll, so we had three people working on this project. You can tell he was oh so excited to start rolling. Ha!

A good way to get a home project going, is having the right tools to do it. 

List of Products to Help With This Job:

• We had three gallons of paint: Navaho White, Red Orange, and Teal
• We mixed up two more colors with the three
• Rollers
• Paint Brushes
• Painter's Tape

Process:

• Paint with a base - We used Navaho White
• Tape with painter's tape - We free formed it
• Burnish the tape
• Roll base color on
• Use a brush to edge the colors
• Roll on the colors
• Take away the tape
• Fix up bleeding paint with a brush

Setting up the Wagner Smart Roller:

The Wagner Smart Roller came in pieces. Travis had the roller set up in minutes.

Where to Get the Wagner Smart Roller:

You can get it here: https://www.wagnerspraytech.com/products/paint-rollers/smart-roller/, for $19.99.

 

The roller was fairly easy to use. We picked to use the Wagner Smart Roller, for the biggest area of paint that we needed to cover. 

We did feel like the paint got in the parts, and was a pain to clean. I think I'd want to use this, for a room that's all the same color. 

How to Use:

The paint gets pumped up into the gigantic syringe AKA a fill tube.

Mica at first didn't think it was working, but it was.

There's a release, to work the paint into the roller. We did it over a paint tray; to not make a mess on the floor.

Start to roll. It puts mini dots all over. I know the dots are meant to roll on, and mesh a solid uniform coating. I happen to like them. I could see the dots in a pop art room. 

We were all hoping the paint would cover more area. It didn't seem like it lasted long. I know it's a bright color. With bright colors you do need a lot of coats. It still seemed like with all the work of getting the paint up into the fill tube it would cover a more massive area. 

The mess was less. There was no paint tray really needed. We had one just in case. It was more of a pain to clean the roller out. Way harder than a typical roller. 

The results were great though. Mica's happy with it. This is his biggest gift, for his birthday. 

What was the last room in your house, that you painted? What color did you paint it? 

Disclaimer: I got the Wagner Smart Roller for free in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

One Boy's Trash is Another Boy's Treasure #craft #art #paint #mixedmedia

My next art | craft post is up on ParentSavvy. I'm really excited to share the steps of this one.

There are 3 main things you need for this:

1. Heavy Structure Gel
2. A Masonite Canvas
3. Light Weight Junk You Will Turn to Treasure

I was so happy! My work gave me a $5 coupon to use at Blick Art Supplies. I found Winsor & Newton Heavy Structure Gel on clearance. It was $7. I had my teacher's discount on top of that. It was pennies.

We had canvas laying around.

Isaak has a lot of of junk that he wanted to turn to treasure. 

Screens

Washers and Other Things

Rubber Bits and Rusted Metal

Rainbow Loom - Not Really Junk, but We Used Them
We Also Used String

A Spoon to Apply the Medium, a Pen or Something to Draw on the Junk to Cut Them Out, Scissors to Cut the Junk

You May Use a Paint Brush, or Foam Brush (Optional)

You May Use Paint or Sand (Optional)

Turning the Trash to Treasure

Figure out what you want to stand out, how things will look on the canvas, and if there's any add on things you'll use before you get started.

We kind of had it figured out here. We decided to make the white mesh the biggest thing on the page, also known as the focal point.

Using Heavy Structure Gel:

Once it was all laid out we started to use the gel. Important use something you can wipe off to apply it. We used a spoon. You can use a fork, a palette knife, or even a plastic comb if you wanted to. It holds it's shape really well, so a fork or comb might be interesting. You'll get lots of lines.

Apply it to build it up on things that have recessed areas. Everything else can just be stuck into it.

We lifted the screen up to re position it. The gel held the texture! It dries a lot faster than I thought. Not so fast that you can't re position things, but I was expecting hours of drying time because it's thick. Nope! More like 20 min. When it dries, things are down for good!

We could have stopped here:

The little circles are Rainbow Looms.

But decided it needed something that would make one thing travel to something else. I told Isaak, "It looks like a Thomas train set with all the buildings, but no track.

We added string:

We could have stopped here:

We Chose to Paint it!

Gold and Silver went on! Isaak sprinkled sand in the wet paint in areas.

Blobs of silver paint went inside the Rainbow Loom circles.

It's Finished!

I would have worked on it more to add reds and teals to enhance the metal look, but Isaak hit his limit. I think it looks cool. Seriously a monkey could have done it with us.

It can go vertical or horizontal. Which way would you put it?