craftgrrl | BatPig! Pincushion! FAIL Shelves! (This is a long post)

Hey everyone,

I recently posted here asking about the best way to paint a plain ceramic piggy bank for my brother's Christmas present. I eventually found some ceramic paint and with only half a week to go until Christmas I finally got it done.

Next time I'd probaby give myself more time to do it and use a better quality brush.

So, Here's how I did it!

I bought the pig like this, from Red Dot (a discount store of sorts). Make sure he is clean and dry before you start painting.

I then freehanded the outline onto my pig with permanent marker. Any mistakes I made I wiped away with acetone on a cotton swab.

Then paint your piggy. I lost count of how many coats I used to get to full opacity but it was a lot. You need to be super careful and make sure each coat dries before painting another because if it isn't it will mess up the first coat and will bald in places.

I also made a tea cup pincushion as a Christmas present for a friend. It was super easy and it was a good way to use up an old teacup.

Also, it seems I need some more help. I've got these cheap shelves that are super ugly. And I sanded them down and primed them and I was going to decorate them with wrapping paper. I cut the paper a bit bigger than the panel I was going to cover and I painted a square of decoupage medium down and laid down my first bit of paper. I then painted the next bit of shelve and tried to flatten out my next peice of paper. I did this for the whole panel and it failed horribly. The paper wrinkled and I tried to smooth it out and just tore the paper. I tried to cut the paper smaller and use less glue but it still failed. I have just enough paper left to cover the shelves and I figured I'd ask here since you guys were super helpful last time.