Puffy Painting Tips

How to Puff Paint like a Champ!

As a proud member of a sorority, granddaughter of a tole painter, and daughter of a certified sign painter, I pride myself on my puffy painting skills.  And I do mean skills.  I grew up with one of the worst, illegible hand-writing styles imaginable.  It took years for teachers to finally understand what I was writing, and learn that I actually had something to say.  

But enough about that, let's get to puff painting! Read the BOLD letters to cut down on length!

1. Always shake the bottle.  Shake it so that the tip is facing downward [with the cap on].  Try to get all the paint down to the tip so that no air will be in the tip and cause it to make a mess of your paint.
2. Practice on something worthless/Made of plastic.  Things made of plastic will normally let you peel off the paint if you don't like your finished product.
3. Work top to bottom and left to right. This will help to make sure you don't drag your hand through your masterpiece.  It can be completely heart breaking.
4. Invest in some gold puffy paint.  This is a really specific tip, but I've found that when in doubt, use the gold puffy paint!  It looks good on almost anything and can really class items up. 
5. Outline what you want to do.  If working on plastic, practice on paper first.  If working on fabric, outline your work in marker, preferably a washable type.
6. Find the middle of what you are doing. Especially when dealing with words.  Count the letters and find what goes in the middle.  Then start with that letter and work your way out.
7. Learn the ideal amount of pressure you need to put on the bottle.  Squeezing too hard or too little will just mess things up.
8. Don't do everything in one movement. It'll work loads better if you take your time and make multiple strokes.   Below is a picture I found that kind of illustrates what I mean by multiple strokes.

I really do get compliments on my puff painting. The only reason I brag? It's a pretty useless skill outside of the world of crafting and sorority.

My grandma taught me how to paint letters with an actual paintbrush.  You can't just jump right in and use it like a pencil.  

Recent Projects

Here are some crafts I've been up to for the past couple months.  If you would like a tutorial on how to make them please let me know! :]

It's baby shower and birthday season around here and I've been crafting like crazy to keep up. 

This is the present I've made for Colton Shane, my newest nephew.  The details haven't been filled in yet, but he hasn't been born yet! 

This is what it looked like before the puff paint.  They went for a Caterpillar Tractor theme.  I think a regular caterpillar would've been easier to find however! I went with this gender neutral safari theme because it's one of my favorites and I had no luck with finding tractors.

This is the one I made for their first child, Olivia.  It was surprisingly difficult to write on the lady bug paper, and surprising difficult to read too.  

The same, without writing.  I took canvas and painted them, then mod-podged a stenciled piece of paper on top.  I made the bow too, but the other parts were all from Michael's.  Her theme has always been lady bugs, but she recently fell in love with elephants so I borrowed the elephant from the safari sheet and used E-6000 to stick it on.

I am in a sorority and recently it was my big sis's birthday.  Our sorority isn't crazy into drinking or anything but it was her 21st birthday and so I had to make it special, don't hold it against me. :p 

Basket with a nice martini glass, puff-painted sippie cup, 8 mini bottles of alcohol, aspirin, gatorade, and mouth wash.  It'll probably take her forever to finish it!  This was a relatively inexpensive basket to make, and I think it turned out very cute!

Then I had the idea to make my dog [the one from the Hijabi post] a plushy too since he loved that one so much. 

Buuuut my boyfriend stole it, as he LOVES dinosaurs, so I need to make him something still!

This one wasn't a present for anyone.  I have always loved Pokémon and Dragonair has always been one of my favorites!! I decided to make one on a tote bag out of those decorative garden beads! I love the result.  I've since done some flowers in the same style.

For Father's Day I made my dad a wooden box with a painting of Jasper on it, as well as some inside jokes.

 The entire top.  No, I don't really call my dad by his first name, but him and my cousin call each other "Dumb Ol'" and "Smart Ol'" and that seemed like a good enough idea to me!

 This is a close up on the Jasper painting part of the top.  I was worried about painting him because he's so black and hard to show dimension in.  I ended up putting silver [my favorite paint] in it to look shiny as well as give dimension.

 This would be a hard inside joke to explain, but yes I painted porkchops [I'm a vegetarian...lol]  around the exterior of the box.