Chalk Paint Dollar Store Leaves Tutorial Part 1 – Crackle!

Yes, I’m still here! 🙂 It’s been a busy last couple of weeks for me. In mid-August, I started a graduate program for Computer Science at Colorado Technical University. I’ve been thinking about going to graduate school ever since I got my undergraduate degree in Computer Science back in 2008, and I finally got around to looking into it at the start of summer. I wasn’t even seriously thinking about going back to school anytime soon; I was just looking into different programs and etcetera. But everything just sorta fell into place, and the next thing I know, I’m signing my life over in student loans. If you’re wondering why I decided to do this at my age (47), join the club, because I’m wondering too! I don’t have any specific career goals in mind with this degree or anything else like that. The only reason I’m doing it is because I got a really, really strong feeling to do so. Over the last few years I’ve learned to trust my gut no matter what, so I’m going with it despite the fact that I have no concrete reasons to do so. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out! 🙂 Anyways, I finished up my first course last week and I am on break until October 3rd.

I’ve also been working on a lot of back end stuff for the blog that I’ve been putting off. One of the major things is that I’ve moved my subscriber list from WordPress/Jetpack over to MailChimp. My subscriber list has grown to the point where I need to a more robust application to handle it, and MailChimp is it. I am very happy with it so far, especially the feature of being able to offer my subscribers to either get each post as they are published or a weekly summary of posts published for that week. If you have not subscribed to The Painted Hinge yet and would like to, please go here. If you’re a blogger and you’re interested in trying out MailChimp, sign up here and get $30 in credit for signing up. (I get $30 in credit too. 🙂 ) MailChimp is a free service if you have less than 2,000 subscribers, but even if you do have less than 2,000 subscribers when you sign up, you can still use the $30 credit if you ever do go over the 2,000 mark. Pretty sweet, huh? 🙂

I came up with more ways to paint these after I posted this tutorial, so be sure to check out part 2 and part 3 of the series!

Okay, enough of all that! Let’s paint some dollar store leaves!

Crackled Chalk Paint Dollar Store Leaves Tutorial
 
Supplies:

• Dollar Store Leaves. They are the faux silk ones that come in a pack of 50.
• Folk Art Chalk Paint in White Adirondack and Parisian Grey where to buy 
• Elmer’s Glue
• Paint Brushes
• Paint canvas or wax paper (so the leaves don’t stick underneath after the glue and paint dries)

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Instructions:

Squeeze Elmer’s Glue onto leaves as shown above.

Using a paint brush, spread the glue evenly over the leaves. The thicker the layer the glue, the more crackle you will get in the paint. Allow to dry until it’s tacky to the touch.

Once the glue is tacky to the touch, give the leaves a good, even coat of paint. Don’t paint a really thin coat because the color of the leaves will show through after it’s dry, but don’t paint a super thick coat either because you won’t get a lot of crackle. Expiriment with a couple of leaves before you paint all of them so you’ll know how heavy the coat of paint needs to be.

As you can see above, the crackling starts happening pretty fast! 🙂 Allow the leaves to dry completely- usually at least a few hours or overnight.

Use your leaves in any of your Fall décor- on wreaths, windows, garlands, you name it! I’m thinking of making a wreath with mine 🙂 And don’t forget to to check out part 2 and part 3 of the series for more inspiration!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! Please feel free to leave your thoughts and questions in the comments section below!