Organizing Some Of These Artist Painting Supplies

I think it's time to get organizing some of these artist painting supplies. I'm starting to find that I'm accumulating quite the assortment. I want a way to store them that's fun and creative! I have chosen to decorate a wooden crate with some colorful acrylic painted tropical fish in an ocean background. The reason why I chose tropical fish is because they fascinate me with all their pretty colors. They are just about as fascinating and beautiful as birds, flowers and butterflies. In this post I'll be telling you how I made my tropical fish crate. It's really fun and easy!

My Newest Favorite Tool Is Really Cool

To get started I purchased the wooden crate (here's a link to it). My newest favorite tool for painted wooden crates is called a Nicholson Half Round Bastard Cut 12 inch File. Kind of an odd name. They sell flat, round, and half round ones. I like the half round one the best. It's basically a metal file and it's so much easier and economical to use than sandpaper. Just go gently with it at first until you get the feel of it because it is a lot more powerful than sand paper. It will also save you time and money because it's faster and will last so you won't have to replace it all the time like sand paper. You can find it here: Nicholson File, or at your local hardware or department store. Sand the crate so there are no rough edges.

Choose An Interesting Theme For Your Crate

You are not limited to the tropical fish in the ocean theme for your crate. You may want butterflies, flowers, stripes, swirls or your favorite sports team. You can use any theme or colors of your choice. This is your project and you can make it any way you want. Let your imagination run away with you! Painted wooden crates also make excellent gift boxes for a baby shower, wedding, birthday, house warming or retirement gift. You could use yours to store toys, camping gear, tools, clothes, shoes or anything other things you can think of. It's completely up to you.

Paint The Background Of Your Whole Crate

I already had the paints on hand. For the ocean you will need different shades of blues, white, green, turquoise and yellow. Don't mix them completely together because you want different shades of colors for the water to give it a little bit of a depth look. Your background can be any color you want. Paint the whole crate in your background color. Let it completely dry.

Decorate It In An Appealing Way Of Your Choice

After the background dries, use graphite paper to transfer some pictures of your theme to your crate. Here's a Download Link of the fish pictures I used for a guideline on my crate. You can use the fish pictures or anything you want on yours. It's your creation. Have fun with it. Then paint your fish or what ever it is for the theme of your crate.

Use A Sealant To Protect Your Beautiful Project

Once you've decorated your crate and it's completely dry, spray it with clear matte acrylic spray or brush on an outdoor water-based polyurethane sealer. This will protect and preserve your project and give it more durability.

Please leave your comments and questions in the comments section below.

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