You da bomb: Crafting with Apple Barrel Paints
Let’s face it, Valentine’s Day is mostly marketed toward the female population. All those pink hearts don’t really sit well with six year old boys, which (let me tell you from experience) can make planning a Valentine’s Day craft for them a bit of a stretch. This year, I’m going rogue with a boyish Valentine craft that doesn’t involve hearts (unless you want it to) and doesn’t involve pink (again, unless you want it to). With the help of Apple Barrel Craft Paint, the kids and I whipped up some of these You Are The Bomb valentine gifts for my son’s friends.
Now, before I get started with the instructions, I want to tell you a couple of things about these paints. Yes, this is a sponsored post, but I want you to know that I’m only sharing out of the truth of my experience. I’m a mom and I know how stressful paints children can be! My heart rate goes up a bit any time something stronger than watercolor paints are involved in my kids’ crafts. So, you can imagine how amazed I was when this stuff was easy to clean up with soap and water! You should still protect your children’s clothes, but this paint washes easily off of tables, hands, placemats, and paint brushes. I was impressed.
The paint washes up well, and dries quickly. The colors came out bright and smooth, and completely covered the wood we painted with just one coat. Apple Barrel carries an enormous range of colors, too, so you can find pretty much anything you are looking for. These paints can be used on all kinds of surfaces, and come in both gloss and matte surfaces.
So what I’m saying is, the versatility of these paints suits my uses perfectly. I don’t want to think about what kind of paint I need for each and every project we come across. Just give me one product that works for everything and BAM, I’m a happy woman!
One last note: You’ll probably notice that I go back and forth between “You are da bomb,” and “You are the bomb,” in this craft. As the mother of a first grader it’s really hard for me to sanction the use of misspelled words, however I also didn’t want the cards to be dorky. I go back and forth on the issue, so in the end I decided to go with both!
INSTRUCTIONS: You are the BOMB Valentine’s Craft
Materials Needed:
- Apple Barrel acrylic paints
- paint brush
- wooden spools
- gold pipe cleaners
- scissors or wire cutters for the pipe cleaners
I found these wooden spools at a craft store and I love how they tie in with the sewing focus of my blog, but also can be used as mini bombs. They are about 1″ tall and measure 3/4″ wide at the top and bottom.
STEP ONE: Paint the spools
Paint your wooden spools! As you can see, my daughter didn’t go for the red-and-black theme of this post. She wants all pink all the time.
Once all your spools are painted, set them aside to dry. (Note: I painted the spools you see in the following pictures. The kids kept their own special spools for themselves.)
STEP TWO: Add the sparkle
It’s time to add the pipe cleaners to your wooden spool bombs. Take one pipe cleaner and cut it into four equal pieces.
Push two bent pipe cleaner pieces into the hole at the top of the wooden spool. You’ve made yourself a nice little mini bomb.
Continue filling the rest of your spools until you have a little gathering of festive-looking sparklers.
I played around with a few different phrases. Obviously, “you are the/da bomb,” was my favorite, but “you make my heart go boom boom,” would have been a fun option.
Scroll down a little bit to see my daughter’s PINK version of this craft, and her suitably girly phrase for the cards.
“I love you more than pink!” These are my daughter’s version of this Valentine craft, and as you can see, she took it back to girly.
If she loves her friends more than pink, that’s saying something.
Thank you so much for reading, and Happy Valentine’s Day Crafting!
For more crafting inspiration, visit Plaid Crafts blog, and sign up for their weekly newsletter for tutorials and special deals. They also have a great Pinterest board filled with crafting ideas.
And one last thing before I go: be sure to cheek out the other bloggers who are crafting for V-Day with Appel Barrel paints. I am so inspired!
