Guest Blogger: Stephanie from Lady With the Red Rocker

Remember this awesome Beaded Indian Corn Pin from Lady With the Red Rocker? 

Well, Today we have Stephanie sharing another fun, colorful and simple tutorial. Her pin was the top viewed link two weeks ago at It's A Rockin' Party and therefore she gets to be a guest blogger today...so without further ado, here's Stephanie...take it away girl... 

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Hello! My name is Stephanie Hill, I'm the Lady With the Red Rocker on my porch. I'm a stay at home mom of 4 beautiful children, and wife to my wonderful husband, Doug. We stay busy with church and school, so I have to sneak my craft time in-between all the craziness.

I am so excited to be here today. Thank you, Carmen, for being so gracious to me, for allowing me this opportunity to share with the fabulous RoCa and Company. This is my first guest post, so I am super-duper excited!

My project for today is for a DIY picture re-paint. You've heard of "paint by numbers", well this is kind of like that, but without the numbers... Okay, it's not really like paint by numbers, maybe more like paint by colors? Um... never mind, let me just tell you what I did. ;)

I've been in the slow process of re-doing my living room, and I re-covered the 47 pillows on my couch...

(No, I don't really have 47 pillows on my couch, it just felt like it when I was in the middle of sewing them. ;))

The pillows have a lot of blue in them, and the picture I had on the wall really wasn't working for me, so I decided to re-paint it. Here's the before and after...

The first thing I did was lightly sand the whole picture, just enough to take off the gloss finish, to help the paint to adhere better.

The majority of the picture is of flowers, and they are all the same kind of flower. I wanted to keep the simple look, but just change the color of the flower. I did this by using 3 shades of blue acrylic paint - dark, medium, and light. I'm a visual person, so here's a picture...

PS. Be sure to mix up as much paint as you think you will need, 'cause it's hard to try to match it later. (Not that I know this from personal experience... *wink*wink* ;))

Then, I began painting the flowers. Using the original flowers as a guide, I painted over the petals with my darkest shade first. After that, I painted the center with a yellow color and allowed it to dry. (I forgot to take a picture of this step, so I re-created it on paper. I'm a nerd, I know. ;))

Next, using the medium color, I painted the petals about half way down over the dark color , and allowed it to dry. Finally, I used the lightest shade, and painted just the edge of the petals. Here is what the flowers looked like when I was finished...

For the leaves, I used a moss-green over the original, and I added a few more leaves throughout the picture.

I used a medium brown color to paint over the original twigs. I also dabbed some brown and green in the center of the flowers to give them some more detail.

Taking the same colors that were used for the flowers, leaves and twigs, I lightly dabbed and blotched those colors into the background of the picture, just enough to bring out the new colors that I added to the picture.

I also painted the vase yellow to match the new pillows...

and, the background mat blue...

The coppery color of the inner frame had to go, and I thought silver would be a nice compliment to the blue in the picture. (If in doubt, go with silver, I always say. :))

I taped off the black frame and lightly sanded the copper frame.

Then, I painted the inner frame with dark silver. (I just added a little black paint to the silver paint, to make dark silver.) Here is the silver paint I used...

Using my scruffy brush, I blotched on the lighter silver paint over the dark silver until it looked like it had been antiqued.

Since I waited to take off the tape until after the paint was dry, I scored the edge with a knife, to make sure that the dry paint did not peel when I took off the tape. (Um... yes, I did use a regular kitchen knife to do this... What!?)

I finished the painting by applying a clear varnish to seal everything.

Here is the final product...

A fresh new picture to grace my wall, all for the price of a little paint. Love it!

Thanks for letting me share with RoCa and Company today!

It was a blast! :)