I was inspired by a post on Facebook. I 'like' some great Facebook pages through my own Facebook account. I love to share what I find and this time I decided to try to copy one from Inner Child Fun. Her Kid Made Paint Skin Tiles looked so tile like and pretty. It looked easy enough and I have some acrylic paints. I also had 2 large quarts of interior house paint that I never used for another project. A project I envisioned more than 5 years ago. I bought it when I was delusional enough to think that I would paint something artsy in our entry way. I thought maybe the house paint would make a nice base. Plus, the only other acrylic paints I have are small bottles for much smaller painting projects. I was skeptical about what the results would be when I figured out that the quarts were interior satin enamel paint. I thought, "acrylic or enamel, kinda the same, right?"
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| Swirling acrylic paint into the base enamel paint. |
I gathered the supplies and the children and hoped for the best. I am always apprehensive when it comes to permanent paint. My dining room chairs still hold the evidence of previous adventures.
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| Supplies for creating the paint skin tiles. |
I attempted to tape down the pieces of parchment paper on cookie sheets. The tape not wanting to stay put wasn't an issue once we poured the base paint out. I wasn't real sure how thick to go with the base. I didn't want it to never dry, but wanted it to be thick enough to be tile like. One thing I didn't expect was the parchment paper getting all wrinkled. I was concerned the paint would saturate and go through the paper. It didn't. My cookie sheets are old so I thought maybe it would be a good excuse for new ones if this craft didn't work out. No new cookie sheets for me. :(
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| Mass mess of acrylic paint swirled into enamel base paint to set out to dry into paint skin tiles. |
When they found out they would have to wait at least 2 days before finishing the whole project they were less thrilled. Even though we live in the dry air of Arizona, it took the full two days to dry. They got excited again when they felt the dried paint and I told them they could peel it off the paper and make their Valentine creations. For my sensory seeking girls this was a good thing. The paint was sort of rubbery.
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| Peeling the dried paint (paint skins) away from the parchment paper. |
Instead of just creating square tiles, my girls wanted to create hearts. They wanted to use the heart cookie cutters for the shapes. The cookie cutters did not cut the paint skin. We had to use scissors. I did convince them to cut some squares for a mosaic tile effect too.
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| Using cookie cutters to create shapes out of the paint skin. |
Once we figure out how to make the paint skins look pretty, we used regular school glue to attach them to the paper.
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| Heart made out of the paint skin for a Valentine's Day Card. |
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| Valentine's Day Card with paint skin X and Os. |
The Hugs -n- Kisses card on the inside says "...always. Happy Valentine's Day."
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| Paint skin tiles used to create a mosaic like heart with a piece missing. |
My girls only finished three pieces for this project. They spent more time playing with the paint skin tiles than they did creating anything else with them. Although we may not have perfect results, the process was far more valuable than the actual product.
