I finally found some time to do some crafting. The whole “moving into a new house” thing really cut into my crafting time but yesterday (thanks to all the rain) I found some time to be creative.
Carter’s room, though cute, was looking rather incomplete because of the bare walls. So when I found three metal stars on sale at JoAnn’s, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.
Here’s one of the stars “as is.” It’s a simple brown metal star, certainly not offensive looking but not what I pictured for a little boy’s room.
I used some craft paint to paint one of the stars navy blue. The paint is still wet in the picture. It’s not this shiny now that it’s dry.
I had some really cute red, white, and blue scrapbook paper that I had bought at a huge discount. I used this paper and some Mod Podge to cover the other two stars. I made each point of the star a different pattern. I made a template of the point of out plain white paper first and then cut out the scrapbook paper to size. I made the long ends a little wider than the point itself so that I could wrap the edges around the back of the star itself to give it a cleaner look.
I liberally applied Mod Podge to both the front of the star and the back of the paper, put the paper on the star, and smoothed out the bubbles with a brayer. I wrapped the edges and then used another liberal application of Mod Podge to the top of the paper.
I don’t have any “action” shots as my hands are usually covered in the “Podge” and I don’t want to get it all over my camera.
I was using a fairly heavy weight scrapbook paper and so a lot of Mod Podge is needed to get good adhesion for the wrapped edges. I like using this kind of paper because it doesn’t just disintegrate and/or tear when wrapping around corners.
I really haven’t found a time when too much Mod Podge is a problem. It just means longer drying time. For most people that’s likely not an issue but I’m so impatient and want to hurry up and finish. For a project like this one, I suggest letting it dry after completing two of the points, otherwise you will not have a good place to hold onto when doing the rest of the points.
Once everything was dry, I hung them on the wall in Carter’s room between his closet and his window. I can’t put a piece of furniture there because of the vent on the floor and the wall space wasn’t right for a picture, I would need something tall and narrow. The three stars seemed to do the trick and add to the navy and red theme already in his room.
[By the way, please ignore the curtains. I have some red fabric that I purchased to sew on an accent panel at the bottom so that they go to the floor. I guess that will now have to be the subject of a future post…but don’t hold your breath. My to-do list is a mile long.]
This whole project was done in just a couple of hours on a rainy Sunday and cost me less than $25. The 3 stars together cost me $21, I used 5 pieces of scrapbook paper (on sale for $0.40/piece), and Mod Podge and craft paint that I had on hand.
I’m pretty satisfied with it. What do you think?
I took apart the stool and spray painted it a chocolate brown. After reassembling it, I used some scrapbook paper and "mod podged" it to the painted steps. When it was all dry, I sprayed it with a couple of coats of clearcoat to make it really easy to wipe down if it gets dirty.
