Painting Wooden Photo Square

We found a wooden photo square that swivels at Walmart. We removed the glass pieces and began painting. The wood absorbs the paint more than ceramics; so, it will take several coats.

You can choose from wooden or ceramic pieces to paint. Ceramics have a smoother surface. You can actually find some craft supplies at Dollar Tree. Dollar Tree usually has ceramic piggie banks in different shapes you can paint. I personally don't like the paint that comes w/ them. I prefer the craft paint at Walmart (Apple Barrel or Folk Art) because it is easier to use; and, it is water based.

Walmart in Elkin has painting kits on the end of one of the aisles near the craft paint. They have jewelry boxes, bird houses, bird feeders, animals, a wagon, etc. The prices range from $7 to $13. The kits come w/ paint and brushes. Like I stated earlier, I don't like the paint that comes w/ them. You can either use that paint or purchase the water base paint by Apple Barrel or Folk Art.

Water base paint is also easier to clean up. My 4 year old actually took a brand new bottle of red paint once, poured it out all over the kitchen chair, and was painting w/ his hands! Luckily, it cleaned up easily because it was water based. Clothes don't fair as well; so, make sure to put on old clothes.

Craft stores will probably be the best place to look for specific items or kits since Walmart has basically cut their craft section to near nothing. You can also find many other projects at a good craft store. For Christmas, we got my son a stuff-saurus. We put the voice box in the foot and stuffed him. He loves that dinosaur! We also made a sun catcher that we got in a kit at AC Moore.

You can also glue things to your projects such as sea shells. We have done this in the past too.

What you need:

Object to Paint. (Can be anything from photo frames to piggie banks).

Paint (I recommend water base paint such as Apple Barrel or Folk Art)

Paint Brushes (size and quality will depend on the project and detail involved)

Tarp, Newspaper, or old box (to put object to paint on to keep paint off the floor)

Clear Spray Paint (to seal the object when finished painting)

We decided to let it dry and come back to this project later to add more coats of paint. When finished, we will print out photos and place them in each square. Come back to see the finished project.

Painting Letters

We went to Walmart and let Rylie pick out wooden letters to spell his name. We are going to paint each letter a different color to hang on his bedroom door.

All the letters are painted. We will add another coat of paint and then spray the letters w/ clear non-yellowing spray paint to seal.

Butterfly Sun Catcher

This was not as easy as it looked. We bought the kit w/ all of the things you will need (except for tweezers). You put the color beads in where you want them then bake in the over to set. Well, the metal frame that came w/ ours was bent. No matter how long we worked on this, we ended up just mixing all of the color beads and baking.

It started good but the tiny glass beads did not stay in place because the frame was a little bent.

My son wanted to mix the colors; so, that is what we did. You can see that the beads spill out around the edges because the frame was bent and did not lie flat on the cookie sheet.

Here is our finished product. The edges aren't pretty; but, my son loves it. That is all that matters!