Showing posts with label Apple Barrel Paint Pens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Apple Barrel Paint Pens. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 15, 2026

Art Techniques: Adventures in Scrape Painting

 


Have you heard of Scrape Painting? It's something I've wanted to try, and finally did! It involves creating a mask of an image, then, as the name implies, using a tool like a squeegee or other flat surface to pull the paint down in a scraping motion. I'll share some lessons learned as we go along.

Supplies:
  • Canvas or Flat Surface
  • Masking Tape
  • Craft Knife
  • Assorted Acrylic Paints
  • Paint Pens 

For my surface, I grabbed a canvas board I had in my stash. For my image, I downloaded one I found online, sized, printed, and cut out the outline. 


You can either use the canvas as is or paint a background. I wanted a background so I grabbed thse two colors and lightly covered the canvas. 


Once the canvas is dry, then it's time to make your mask, using...masking tape! Layer so each piece slightly overlaps. This avoids lines in your final image. 


Continue applying the masking tape until your surface is covered. To ensure good adhesion, I went over the masking tape with a scraping tool...eg the kind you use to apply vinyl. 


You can draw directly atop the masking tape or trace an image like the one I printed and cut out. I just used a Sharpie for this. 


Grab your X-acto or craft knife, and cut around the interior of your traced image. You want to remove the tape from the interior of your drawn or traced image. Once you have your whole image cut out, it's time to paint!


This is a total free-for-all with whichever colors you want to use. I just dripped these directly from the 2oz bottles, but you can also put the paints in smaller squeeze bottles or, as I plan to do, get some pointed tips to place directly on the paint bottles for cleaner application. Or not! For the next step you'll need a squeegee or a scraper wide enough for your image. I didn't get pics of this part but it's pretty straightforward. 

NOTE: Here's where I messed up! You should just scrape once from slightly above the top of your paints. I missed so I did it twice which overblended my paints, but I'm still good with things! Practice, right? 


As you can see, I got a little bleed on the paints. No worries. The next step will take care of things! 



I grabbed an Apple Barrel Paint Pen in black and went around the image to outline it. Then I took a gold paint pen and added dots and the needles on the cactus. 



I also grabbed my paint-dotting styluses and added some larger white dots in the background, and smaller ones on the cactus pads. 


Despite my goof with the double scrape, I'm still happy and can't wait to do another one of these! 


Sharing At:









Tuesday, December 2, 2025

Holiday Decor: Dollar Tree Stackable Gingerbread Tree

 


No doubt you've seen all of the incredible ways people have transformed the stackable tree from Dollar Tree into all kinds of wonderful Christmas decor. I was immediately smitten with the gingerbread versions and knew I wanted to try my hand at it. 

Supplies:

  • Stackable Tree from Dollar Tree
  • Rustoleum Spray Paint, Nutmeg
  • Apple Barrel Acrylic Paint, Nutmeg
  • White Paint Pen (Apple Barrel)
  • Mandala Dotting Tools


If you're not familiar with these stackables, they have trees, snowmen, and presents. I also suggested to them that they add a Nutcracker next year. I mean c'mon...it would SELL! I also like that they fit inside each other like Russian nesting dolls, which makes things easier for storage purposes. 


I spray painted each section with Rustoleum Nutmeg. Then I went over it with Apple Barrel Nutmeg to ensure deeper coverage.


From here, it's just a "let your imagination be your guide" kinda thing. I used an Apple Barrel white paint pen and just started freehanding each section. This is the bottom section. 


For me, it was much easier to do this section by section, than assemble the tree and wrangle the whole thing! This is the middle section. 


Same process for the top section. I used hot glue to create a "snowcap", which I painted white once the glue was set. You can totally stop with just the pen work. But I'm a "more is more" kinda girl so I got out my Mandala styluses and added more detail using different sizes. 


It becomes kinda meditative, like people have said about Zen Tangling / Zen Doodling. Once everything was dry, I snapped all the pieces together and added some gingerbread ribbon I found at Michaels! To finish, I also added a gingerbread-themed poinsettia I found at Walmart. 


And here's the finished tree being guarded by the Gingerbread Nutcrackers I shared last month!

Should they do a Nutcracker?