Adding Crackle To Your Projects

I will admit that using a crackle medium has intimidated me in the past.  But when a friend sent me a few gourds to paint for a wreath that she has, and a picture, I saw that she wanted them to be crackled.  She wanted them painted cream with gold peaking through the crackle. I had read about using glue to crackle, but I was a little hesitant on the results.  The results are awesome so I thought I'd share.

The color that you want to peep through the crackle needs to be your underlying paint color.  In this case - gold.  I used a basic acrylic here. Nothing fancy.

I've read that Elmers glue is the best, but I had some old crafters glue and thought...what the heck, I'll give this a try. If there is one thing I've learned.....you have to practice on something other than the piece you are doing.  Use an old board or junk piece of wood.  Don't make mistakes on your furniture and pieces where you might have to strip and sand to start over.  No fun.  So I practiced on a piece of wood and lo and behold, it worked!  

I painted the little gourd with the crafters white glue. All over (I did not thin this out).  I waited until the glue had dried some but was still tacky.

Then i painted over the glue with the overall cream color.   This next part, is super fun!  Take a hair dryer to the paint.  Hold this close to your paint so the heat begins to dry the paint quickly.  It may take a few minutes for the crackle to take effect.  The heat forces the paint to dry quickly and as the glue dries, it pulls and shrinks to give you a crackle look.

How cool right?  Not to mention this turned out just beautiful!

The fun thing with paint, is that you can do so much with it.  I especially like chalk paint because of its ease and versatility.  If I was going to crackle on a piece of furniture....I would probably buy a crackle medium and practice with it first.  Then again....maybe not.  

Happy Monday!

Paula