Wall Decor II: Depth and Colour

Last week we left off and my wall decor project complete with raised stencilling – created out of Posh Chalk Stencils and Whitson’s Impasto Platser – was being left to dry. Well, it’s been a week, so it’s safe to say it’s dried!

The next stage is the fun bit, playing around with Posh Chalk Metallic Pastes, Pigments and WoodUbend mouldings!

I mentioned last week that the plaster was tinted to match the Blue Prussian Metallic Paste, it’s time to show you why. Taking a lint free cloth, I dabbed it into the paste and began to spread it all over the plaster, spritzing as I went. Obviously, the cloth had to be lint free otherwise I’d end up with fluff all over my wall decor project!

The metallic paste added a real, well, metallic shine to the wall, it really began to highlight the flattened peaks as they really caught the light. I didn’t want to be too heavy handed with the application of the paste, just doing it in small areas and really working it in and buffing it up. It was important to keep spritzing it though, this kept the product moving, as the pastes are water based all you need is a little water.

Once I’d finished the whole wall with the paste, I could crack straight on with adding the Copper Posh Chalk Pigments. The pigments would really take this wall decor project to the next level, combined with the Blue Prussian Paste, the pigments would add some real depth and an almost tarnished copper vibe to the wall decor project.

I mixed a small amount of the pigments with the Posh Chalk Infusor and got to work. This took a very light hand! I dabbed a Dixie Belle Gator Hide sponge into my shiny metallic mixture and started very lightly brushing over my textured wall. The aim here was for some of the copper pigments to highlight the raised texture and ridges whilst leaving the crevices relatively untouched. Obviously, some of the pigments would seep into the contours, but as I was looking for an organic feel, this was absolutely fine.

What the pigments really helped with is highlighting the raised stencilling, they really took to the ridges of the mandala stencils.

I cannot reiterate enough, however, how light a touch you need and how little of the pigments you require on your sponge. For the whole wall, I only reapplied the pigments solution once.

Like the pastes, the Infusor is quick to dry and water based, so there was no downtime between applying the pigments to moving onto the next stage of the process…WoodUbend.

When creating a wall decor project like this, it’s generally of pivotal importance to be absolutely spot on with your measurements, especially if using traditional wood. With WoodUbend, however, if your measuring – and subsequent cutting – skills are a little suspect, it’s not a huge issue…as I discovered!
Before I regale you with my questionable woodwork skills, let’s get some large pediment mouldings on the wall!

In all, there was four pediment mouldings which were pre-painted in the wall decor blog last week, remember? Each of these would be centred on each side, joined up by a short bit of trim (also pre-painted last week).

For those of you who don’t recall, WoodUbend can be pre-painted prior to heating and bending as long as you are using a flexible paint. I has used La Magic Paint’s Dark Sands, the same colour the wall was painted in.

So, onto a bit of WoodUbending, once the mouldings were warm I liberally applied a good wood glue to the whole of the back of the moulding. As a rule of thumb, WoodUbend mouldings take as long to cool down as they do to warm up. The mouldings I was using took quite some time to heat up as they were thick, this gave me some time to play with. I placed my moulding on my mark I had measured out, pressed them on and gave them a blast with the heat gun before cleaning the excess glue off and then repeat the process three more times.

It’s a good sign if glue squeezes out from under your WoodUbend, it simply means that they are really adhering to the surface.

The end was in sight, but so was my set square and the WoodUbend trim. Normally, mitring takes a fair bit of precise measuring and cutting, and maybe even a bit of swearing! However, with WoodUbend trim, you simply measure out your lengths, overlap them on something like a set square and slice them when they’re nice and toasty.

My woodwork skills were called into question however when I came to glue the trim onto the surface. I had cut them too short!
Disaster!
Or maybe not.
WoodUbend mouldings, especially the trims can be stretched when warm. This can be done without distorting the pattern on the trim, and hides a multitude of measurement faux pas. It also means you can really join up your trim if you’re pushing it up against something…a large pediment moulding perhaps?
Trim on, then it was a case of just cleaning up the drips of blue paste and copper pigments with the Dark Sands and there she was. An easy peasy wall decor project done in a fraction of the time and cost!