From Craft Kitsch to Cool

From Craft Kitsch to Cool
By Jessica Wilson

I’m a big fan of color. In junior high it was all about red, black and white. In high school, I lived in the Tweeds catalogue and pined for pine, teal and mustard. In my early twenties, it was all about eggplant and forest green, and in my later twenties it was red and aqua. I’m still a fan of all those colors, but now I can’t seem to stick with one favorite. To make it easier, I painted my bedroom a south seas color and the living room is a sonic lime. To tie in some nifty collections and to streamline the visuals a bit, I have been collecting funky shaped, kitschy thrifted objects to paint and display. Making them all one color takes the kitsch away and turns into something cool and a wee bit modern, like something you’d see in a fancy schmancy catalogue. You know, the ones you can’t possibly ever throw away? Here’s a quick way to take an odd assortment of thrifted items and make them super spiffy.

Materials

Collection of smallish thrifted items
Spray paint (I like the floral craft paint, it has more matte than gloss)
Splat mat
Outdoor space for spray painting
Super fine sand paper (optional)

Directions

Step 1: Gather your goodies and decide what color you want each item to be. Hard items work best. If an item is too slick, you may want to sand it a touch with a super fine grade of sandpaper. This will help the paint stick.

Step 2: Shake up your can of spray paint and apply to your object. You will want to do short left to right strokes about six inches away. Get too close and too frenzied and your paint will gather and drip. I speak from experience, spray paint and I only “sort of” get along.

Step 3: Once you finish the front side of your object, allow to dry a bit before applying your next coat. Some objects may only need one coat while others will need many. I turn it into an all day process. I spray, spray, spray and then go inside to wash dishes, clean, or run errands. I return to spraying every thirty minutes or so.
Step 4: Repeat the process with the backs of your items and visualize where you will arrange them.

Step 5: Gather and enjoy! Different items will take to the paint in very different ways. Some items may still feel a bit tacky to the touch, Let them dry for another day. This is not recommended for anything you may wish to eat off of or for anything your children may wish to play with. Just pop them onto a shelf, add some flowers and enjoy!

About the Author:

Jessica Wilson is most happily known as ‘jek in the box’ and spends most of her time crafting it up and taking pictures. She can often be found standing on benches over on Flickr and creating all sorts of kiddie crafts on her blog scrumdilly-do! She lives a life of scrumdillydilly and loves to share.