arcs and Crafts

by Julie White

I’m so excited for fall that I’ve started noticing autumn-related things more and more. Recently I saw some leaf-shaped wooden bowls at an Arc Thrift Store and decided they’d be perfect for some crafting with friends. The smaller leaf bowls each cost $0.99 or $1.99 and the largest was only $3.99. I purchased some other wooden bowls and receptacles so that everyone had choices in what they were making.

I have tons of acrylic paints that I’d like to use up and decided that this would be a great project to use them on. I wiped down each wood piece to get off any dust and then everyone picked the one they were interested in painting.

We all started by taping off different sections of our bowls or trays in order to create color-blocking sections for the paints. Some of us created tons of tape divided sections while others chose to only make a couple, keeping in mind that anywhere we had tape would be bare wood when we pulled it off.

Once we had things sectioned off we picked our colors and started painting. We tried to pick complimentary colors both to each other and to the wood itself.

After painting we slowly removed the tape while the paint was still wet in order to avoid dried bits on the edges from falling into wet spots and messing up the designs.

If we wanted to add more color blocks we waited until the sections dried and then taped off another section before painting a different color.

I sprayed each item with a glossy sealant once they were dry in order to protect the designs from chipping. The dishes are not food safe but they will definitely end up holding keys, chapsticks, mail, etc.

This was a very simple craft that had beautiful results.