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Blog Swap with The Experimental Home

Today my blog is being taken over…by someone AWESOME! Laura from The Experimental Home is here with a great thank you idea! Take it away Laura!

P.S. While Laura is here at 32 Turns all day, I am taking over her blog, come and visit me at The Experimental Home where I will also be sharing a great idea for showing some love to your favorite teachers!

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Hi there! Laura from The Experimental Home here. I am so excited to be guest posting over here at 32 Turns today! Before I give you the details about an awesome thank-you gift for any woman in your life, I thought I would tell you a little bit about myself. You know, so you aren’t taking crafty advice from a stranger.

I am a scientist by day, and a wife and mama all the time. As a scientist I learn by doing experiments, and it turns out that I do the same thing at home. I never know what I am doing until I’m done. Sound familiar? I bet it does. My blog is all about those everyday experiments. 

Today I am sharing with you not one, but two experiments, all wrapped up in a nifty little package… Well the package is actually the second experiment. Anyway, let’s get started.

colorblockhyp-01

 

Pinterest. How many crafty tutorials start with, “I saw this pin and…”? Well, this is one of them. I saw this necklace pinned from A Girl Who Makes. I just love the paint-dipped wood beads. They seemed straight forward enough to make, so I picked up some wood beads and gave paint dipping a try. 

Now, here is the thing about paint-dipped crafts. Nobody actually dips stuff in paint like you would dip a strawberry in chocolate. Instead, they use painter’s tape to create a “paint-dipped” look. Go figure. Well, I didn’t actually dip anything in paint either, but I am still going to use the term, “paint-dipped”. Okay?

I started out with large wooden beads.

wood beads for paint dipping

And some yellow acrylic paint.

yellow paint

I carefully wrapped some painters tape around the middle of 9 beads.

taped wood bead

I used the tape to make them stand up on my work surface and painted the exposed bead yellow. It took a couple coats.

yellow taped beads

I let them dry, took off the tape… And surprise! Paint-dipped beads. What… you aren’t surprised?

yellow paint dipped beads

My beads looked lovely, but not quite like jewelry. So I thought I would give them some shine with a high-gloss finish. In order to paint all sides of them I suspended them on some wooden skewers stuck into paper cups. Actually, the idea to use wooden skewers came from Britany… remember how she painted her Thumb Tack Craft Balls

paint dipped high gloss

Two coats of the glossy stuff and I had shiny paint-dipped beads begging to be made into some jewelry. I decided I wanted to make a bracelet out of them, so I got to stringing on stretchy string.

paint dipped beading

One big, fat knot later, and I had a bracelet.

paint dipped bracelet paint dipped arm

Wouldn’t that bracelet make the perfect little gift for that woman in your life? You know the one. She may be your mom (wait, did you forget Mother’s Day?), your sister, your friend, or a teacher. Whoever she is, you owe her a little something to say “thank you”, don’t you?

While I was thinking about giving my paint-dipped wood-bead bracelet to a wonderful lady in my life, I realized I couldn’t just giver her a loose bracelet. It needed some pretty packaging. Actually, gift-wrapping is one of my favorite parts of gift giving – I just love making things a little more special!

I decided that this bracelet would fit perfectly into a pillow box. So I made one out of an up-cycled cereal box. I had never actually made my own pillow box before, so I did a little research. I found an easytutorial at Lines Across, and got to work. I used a salad plate instead of a CD to draw my curves because I needed a little bigger box… and I dipped it in paint. Okay, no I didn’t. But I did get an amazing paint-dipped look!

paint dipped pillow box

Wait, you don’t know how to embroider? Check out my tutorial. Too intimidating? No problem. There are approximately 85 zillion ways you could embellish your paint-dipped pillow box. You could add stenciled or vinyl letters, decoupage, washi tape, ribbon, etc. Or you could just let it be, with all its paint-dipped splendor.

Now, that is a thank-you gift I will be proud to give.

paint dipped set

paint dipped thank you

I hope I have inspired you to give paint-dipping a try! A big thanks to Britany for letting me take over her beautiful little bloggy today. Isn’t she awesome? I sure think so. Anyone who likes cookies this much must be awesome!

 Laura

 

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