This is my third post for “The Ampersand Series”, a collection of various crafts highlighting the ampersand symbol. So we are back to some gray weather here in Washington, and adding color to my home office is a must. Please take a look below at tutorial and list of materials. Working with acrylic paints was very therapeutic… I really like the “brushy” texture, both my artwork and stationery box ended up with ;)

Materials & Tutorial

Materials: Aqua Acrylic Paint, White Acrylic paint, Ampersand Mask, 12×12 wood frame, glitter paint.

1. Gather wood frame and ampersand mask.
2. Mask the frame border area of the frame with washi tape (or any tape you can easily peel off). Position ampersand mask at the bottom right of the frame. Use some tape to secure it.
3. Get acrylic paints ready and pour aqua paint and white paint separately. Mix aqua and white paint to create the “middle” color for ombre effect.
4. Start painting the bottom of the frame with aqua paint. Add the mixed paint in the middle, finally paint the top with white paint. Using a thick foam brush blend the paint from the bottom to the top to create ombre effect.
5. Wait for the paint to dry and slowly peel of mask. Now, in my case, the paint bled underneath the mask. I had to improvise and decided to paint over the mask. The paint acted as “glue” and the mask remained part of the artwork. Crafts not always turn out the way you envision them ;)
6. Use white glitter tape to cover the frame border of the artwork.

Additional Crafts

I always re-use prior crafts and try to adapt them to my next “theme”.

1. I had quite a bit of left over paint and used it to create an ombre effect on both sides of a Kraft basket. I found these baskets at Target, in their $1 section.
2. These are paper weights from a prior project. Please take a look at “Bring Back Spring” post.

Thank you for reading and visiting kraft&mint! If you enjoyed this post and would like to see the next craft for “The Ampersand Series”, click on the “follow kraft&mint” button on the right column. As always I heart your comments! I’m linking this post to the following blogs: Snap! Bloom Designs WorkitWednesdays Monday Funday TwelveOeight Three in Three Just a girl and her blog  The DIY Dreamer