Forrest Animal Friends: Creating Nursery Decor with Perfect Paints
- walterz74
- Jul 15
- 3 min read
Hi, friends! It's Walter on the blog with you today. I'm going to become a great uncle in September as my nephew and his girlfriend will be adding a baby girl to our family! Truth be told, I'm pretty excited about it because both my niece and my nephew are well into their 20's and it's been a long time since there have been little ones around. I wanted to make something special for my great niece's nursery and automatically knew that Perfect Paints would be major contributor to bringing the designs to life! I made three mini-mixed media canvases, each with a woodland animal character in a scene, to give to them. Let's jump into the process!
I used the following Perfect Paints products to create them:
Stamperia Hidden Grove Moulds: A4, Door and Window, Mushroom House
Perfect Cast Casting Material
Woodgrain Tool
3 Mini Canvases and Easels
Here's how I created them:
My overall inspiration for the canvas designs was to have a scene with a woodland animal and some elements of a house set against the backdrop of tree bark. The animal made a home in the tree and each scene would depict it. It's such a fun and magical design for a nursery!
The first step was to create the background on each canvas. To achieve this, I spread some Riverstone Texture Medium onto each canvas with a palette knife. I then used a wood grain tool, which is like a comb with various designed teeth, and dragged it through the medium. I did some in straight lines and some in curved lines. It's your project so you can make the tree bark look however you'd like!
Once dry, I mixed some Shimmering Matte Acrylics and Perfect Glaze Medium together to create three different shades to use to paint the tree bark: Espresso for a dark brown; Espresso, Halo, and a little Aged Copper for a light brown; and Halo and Shadow but a light black. Espresso was the first layer, followed by the lighter brown to accent portions, and finally the light black to add some age and grunge.
I set the canvases aside to dry and mixed the Perfect Cast medium together according to the directions on the package. You'll know that you have it mixed correctly if the resulting medium is the consistency of pancake batter. I poured the mixture into the moulds and let it cure. This particular medium takes around 60 minutes - 90 minutes to harden, and then the pieces should rest for 24 hours to make sure that they are fully dry.
Once dry, I chose the pieces that I wanted to include on each canvas and arranged them to make sure that they's fit into place.
Happy with how they were going to look, I started to paint the pieces. I recommend using smaller detail paint brushes in paint these small pieces. There is so much detail in each piece and the smaller brushes allow you to get into every nook and cranny without getting paint onto the already painted areas. What I love about Perfect Paints Shimmering Matte Acrylics is that the paint just glides on so easily with each brush stroke and the resulting colors are so majestic!
I let all of the painted pieces sit for an hour after painting just to make sure that everything was dry. I used both craft glue and super glue to adhere the pieces into place on each canvas. I like the mixture of the two as they make a really solid bind to the canvas.
I am truly thrilled with how each canvas turned out! They're so fun, fanciful, and magical. I can just see them set upon a shelf in my great niece's bedroom and can imagine the stories that she'll make up as she looks at them as she's older.
What do you think of the mini canvases? Which one is your favorite? I'd love to know! Thanks so much for spending some time with me here on the blog today. I'll see you again soon. Until then . . . be well!
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