Piero Fornasetti: Art in Common Things

When we think of art, we often think of watercolors by Monet, oils by Rembrandt, marble sculptures, bronze busts, objects of beauty inaccessible to us in the everyday, unless we visit a museum, or buy a small, inadequate replica for the bookshelf. We don't think of use. And when we think of household goods, we imagine linens, furniture, cups and plates-utilitarian objects for utilitarian functions. We don't think of art.

We don't think of Piero Fornasetti. But we should.

It's relatively easy to see beauty and wish to commit to canvas. It takes a special sort of genius to see that same beauty and find a way to recreate it in a common object-to make art with function. Italian artist Piero Fornasetti (1913-1988) dedicated his life and unique vision to creating art in every possible form, from wallpaper depicting the city of Jerusalem to window blinds which, when closed, became row upon row of ornate Italian arches.

One of Fornasetti's most well-known and enduring works is his "Variations and Themes," a series of plates depicting the face of 19th century operatic soprano Lina Cavalieri in 350 different poses.

Here, she's sipping from a teacup, there, she's gazing out at you from behind bars. Here, she's wearing a veil, there, she's split in two, a broken classical artifact. Each pose celebrates her beauty, and beauty itself, with creativity and wit.

After his death, Fornasetti's son Barnaba, dedicated himself to replicating his father's most famous work in the same time-honored methods Piero used, including some of the most popular and evocative plates in the " Variations and Themes " series. An intelligent mixture of traditional beauty and modern artistry, these decoupage "canvases" bring art to the everyday life of the kitchen and living room. They can provide an unexpected, gentle touch of humor to a serious conversation, bring a traditional room into the 21st century, or give a splash of visual activity to a neutral palette.

Many of us dream of having a beautifully decorated home, only to settle for old college bookshelves, a value-store dining table and our parents' cast-off sofa and chair. Our "art" consists of a generic print that would look at home in any bank branch or dentist's office. Just because you live an everyday life, don't succumb to the dullness of everyday art. Allow Piero Fornasetti to inspire you to find beauty, comedy, and joy in the common.

How to Decorate Flower Pots

Add color to your garden, patio or indoor space with simple flower pot crafts. Flower pots are functional blank canvases, encouraging a wide range of creativity. You can paint, decoupage, stamp and embellish as part of your flowers pot crafts. Come up with your own flower pot craft projects with these ideas.

How to Decorate Clay Pots by Heidi Borchers & Tiffany Windsor

Painting

After purchasing a flower pot, sand the pot down before painting. You should also seal the inside of the flower pot with an oil-based polyurethane to protect your painted design from water penetration. If you are painting pots for outdoor placement, use a paint specifically designed for outdoor use. DecoArt Patio Paint is water and weather-resistant and adapts well to changing temperatures. Outdoor paints also mean your pot will be easy to clean.

Try painting sections of the pot in different colors. Use painter's tape to mark off the top lip of the pot and paint a coordinating color. Or, create several bands around the flower pot with the painter's tape and create stripes on your flower pot.

Bright colors work well in gardens. To select a color scheme, look at design or craft resources on colors like Paper Crafter's Color Companion by C&T Publishing. Paint two to three coats of each color on your pot. If you want to add a design to your pot, paint the background a nice, muted color such as light yellow.

Use stencils to paint words or shapes onto your flower pot. You can also use this technique to label the contents of the flower pots decoratively, such as "Basil" or "Chives." Use a sponge to paint your flower pots. Paint all over in one or two colors, or create bursts of colors with a round sponge that look very much like flowers. You can also cut a normal kitchen sponge into a shape such a heart or star.

Decoupage

Cut out words and images from scrapbook papers, magazines and even junk mail to decoupage your pot. Create a theme by selecting similar words or images, for example Spring. Tissue paper is a great material to decoupage pots. You can use one color or a variety of coordinating colors for a fun, semi-transparent look. Crinkle the tissue paper in your hands and tear into pieces. Use a foam brush to apply decoupage glue (such as Mod Podge) to your pot. Smooth tissue paper pieces over pot in a random pattern. Cover with another coat of decoupage glue.

For fun, add a coat or accents of glitter or sparkle, such as with Tulip 3D Sparkle Paint. For outdoor placement, you will need to cover your decoupage work with a coat of UV-resistant acrylic coating, like those made by Krylon.

Embellishment

Yarn - Wrap yarn or twine tightly around the lip of your pot, gluing as you go. Yarn-wrapping creates an interesting textured look.

Buttons - Flat buttons are a fun way to decorate pots. Paint flowers on your pot and glue buttons as the centers the flowers. Add a line of buttons around the top of the pot. Randomly glue buttons all over the pot.

Caley Walsh is an editor for the crafting and DIY website http://www.FaveCrafts.com. http://www.FaveCrafts.com has 1000's of free home decor ideas and craft projects in every area of crafting, including patriotic crafts for Memorial Day. We add new projects and tips everyday. Some of our readers favorites include Christmas Crafts, Free Knitting Patterns, Free Crochet Patterns and Crafting with Kids.

How to Create the Perfect Crackle Glaze Finish

How to Decoupage and use a Craquelure Finish. -A two-part crackle glaze that imitates old cracked varnish. When dry, the craquelure glaze on your decoupage item can be improved by adding a dark wax.

YOU WILL NEED

• A surface to decorate.

• Fine sandpaper

• Water based paint

• Crackle Glaze varnish

• Small rollers and brushes

• Cleaning cloth

• Gift Wrap Paper

• Glue

• White glue

• Cutting instruments

• Embellishing wax

How To

Clean the surface with garnet paper and apply a water based paint. Mix up a small amount of wallpaper paste and cut out your paper designs. Stick paper cut-outs onto your prepared item press firmly, eliminating bubbles and any excess with a damp cloth or roller.

Paint on the base coat of the crackle glaze. Leave to dry and then paint another coat.

Add second layer of varnish with soft paintbrush Wait until the varnish is totally dry. Rub dark wax into the surface of the cracks. Rub away the excess wax with kitchen paper.

Cover the inside, non decorated parts of your item with paint. Seal the insides with a light topcoat of clear Varnish.

Once the PVA glue is dry, you can apply a coat of clear furniture wax to the surface. Lightly burnish the waxed surface with mutton cloth.

For the final touch, apply gilt cream to rims and edges.

Now you can show your finished article to your friends and start finding new items to decoupage and decorate. Make more decorative items and presents for friends and family using your new-found skills!.

Gill Fothergill has been creating and writing about decoupage techniques and resources since 1995. To find out more visit her website
http://www.decoupagepapers.co.uk

Decopatch Glue And Papers To Beautify Your Home

Decopatch is a special kind of paper that is thin at around 20 gsm and can be used to decorate virtually any type of surface. It can be very helpful for artists, interior decorators and furniture designers in beautifying surfaces such as porcelain vases, wooden furniture, plastic fixtures and many others. To use Decopatch, you definitely need to have special Decopatch glue that will be used to melt the paper into the surface.

When you have Decopatch papers and Decopatch glue in your own home, you are given total liberty as to the many designs and patterns that you can add to any fixture in your house to make it more lively and appealing. No matter what that type of fixture might be, there is always a pattern or a collage design that can make it look better.

Decopatch makes it easier for you to beautify items in your home. This type of paper is easy to use and can even be torn without scissors. It is thin enough to give you many choices but is also sturdy and strong which makes it resilient to varnishing and sanding. These papers also give you a variety of colors and even patterns to choose from.

When you are designing an item in your home, you can use several paper patterns or utilize a single Decopatch sheet to achieve a certain look. It gives you a chance to take any old objects that you already have, create a new pattern, pattern or color scheme and transform that old object into something new.

No one can certainly go wrong with Decopatch designing. If you want to make it more customized or to make the object stand out more, you can also use the glue to embellish the object with decorative stones and sequins. Patchliner, a special type of adhesive material that is used with Decopatch can also be used to highlight focal areas or to accent a region in the object.

If you want to add Decopatch to items that are regularly exposed to harsh elements which can promote wear and tear, you can also add a weather proofing varnish. This protective varnish gives you the freedom to decorate items such as mugs, plates, glasses and even outdoor furniture without worrying too much about the design wearing too soon.

Decopatch might be expensive compared to the typical table napkin or colored paper but they are worth every penny with all the styling opportunities that you can do with them.

Katia is the author of a 10-page guide, "30 FAQ's to Help You Master the Art of Decopatch". For your complimentary copy, visit http://www.paper2play.com - a website that specializes in provided craft related tips, advices and resources to unlock your creativity with Decoupage!

Making Handmade Birthday Cards

I love creating handmade birthday cards and have been doing so for around 20 years. I have found it very gratifying, relaxing and rewarding to create my own handmade cards. It can be a good method to relax, by sitting with all of my papercrafts things all spread out next to me and to really allow the inspiration to flow!

A hand crafted card can be as complicated or as simple as you wish it to be. A very simple design can be extremely attractive and exceedingly effective. Uncomplicated designs are perfect for first-timers to card making to begin with. You could try mounting a die-cut decoupage image onto a plain blank card with a peel off sticker message to finish the handcrafted card, a super easy design to create without a great deal of gear required, but nonetheless very interesting and effective.

Once you have mastered simple designs, have a shot at adding to those designs. Introduce an additional embellishment like a bow or perhaps a pre-made topper. Start incorporating background papers to a section or all of the card blank and include glittery or pearlised accents with decorative glues. Rather than a decoupage image, have a go at rubber stamping a picture onto some card, colour the rubber stamped image with colored pencils or watercolour paints, trim around the stamped picture in a rectangular shape or square shape and then put that stamped picture on your card blank. Your own ideas will soon come to be bigger, better and more elaborate designs. By using a minimal amount of work you can actually come up with some very impressive designs.

Whenever you begin to create a Birthday card, first of all it is advisable to give thought to whom the greeting card is for. Is it for a teenager or an adult, might it be for a male or a female, precisely what are their passions and hobbies?. It is usually good to integrate a little something personalised into the birthday card. If for example your card will be for a soccer player, a soccer picture, with soccer embellishments will create the ideal birthday card and would suggest that a large amount of deliberation has gone in to the card.

Once you have decided upon the concept for your card, you will need to decide on the colour scheme. A colour scheme for a card could be guided via the colours in a decoupage image or perhaps a pre-made decoration that you have already decided on. Pick out a couple of colors from that decoupage picture or decoration and work with those colours with the entire card, colour co-ordinating any ribbons, accessories or backing papers to those two colours. If you use a rubber stamped picture then you'll be able to colour that picture using your individual colour scheme and build on that scheme by using colour co-ordinated additions.

To personalise the hand made birthday card, you could have the person's name within the theme of the card. This can be accomplished with the use of peel off sticker lettering, clear alphabet stamp lettering or should you have a steady hand, you'll be able to hand write his / her name using a decorative ink or glitter glue.

Lastly printing an insert for the card which has a lovely personalized message like a poem or lovely message definitely finishes off your hand-made birthday cards.

On the lookout for craft supplies? Check out http://www.glittermonster.co.uk for a big selection of decoupage sheets, rubber stamps, card, paper and card making materials.

Crackle Effect and Decoupage Go Together So Well

Decoupage is nice way to embellish something itself, but you will give it a special touch if you add crackle technique. There are different crackle mediums, most common is one component crackle medium. It is used to break second color as I will explain soon.

When you are using this kind of crackle medium you will need darker and lighter acrylic colors. First paint your item with dark acrylic color, leave it to dry, than cover it with crackle medium. It looks like honey, it is mostly transparent, sticky and thick. Leave your item to dry completely, you will know it has dried when surface is no longer sticky. Now paint it with lighter acrylic color. If you want to add decoupage on it, you must use very light color such as white, light beige or any other pastel color with lots of white in it. You can apply this second color with brush or with sponge. Be careful to go ONLY ONCE over same part of the surface because otherwise you could ruin crackled look. If you are using sponge, crackles will be smaller and in many directions, with brush you will get your color break in streaks. Upper color, which is light, will break and in those cracks darker colors will become visible creating a vintage look.

After few hours your item will be dry and you can start applying napkins if you like.

Two components crackle medium is used differently and gives totally different look. It is used over finished item, meaning your item was colored in light color, napkin was applied and everything is totally dry. Then you apply first component thoroughly using dry brush. Leave it to dry and when it has dried you can apply second component. Take a look at manufacturer's instructions, but usually second component should be applied thicker. Thickest the second component and shorter the time of drying, your crackles will be bigger. When everything is dry crackles are not very visible so now you should use metallic powders and rub them into cracks to emphasize them. You can even use your old eyeshadow. Wipe off excess powder with soft cloth and finish everything with transparent varnish in spray-make sure it is not water based because it could eat up your metallic powder. Enjoy and results will be smashing.

What’s New @ScrapMatters

Look What’s New at ScrapMatters.com 11/11/2011!!

Hello! I hope you had an awesome DSD. Personally, I need a new external hard drive. Mine is now literally full and my “to be filed” download file hovers around the 3-4 gigabyte range.
Please help us welcome our November guest designer, MHK Scraps.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 11th, 2011 at 7:25 am and is filed under Guest Designers, What's New at ScrapMatters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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