DIY Splatter Paint Bunny Garland on My Chic & Simple Easter Mantel
Posted on April 10, 2017
My sparks of creativity come and go. There is not a constant flame of creative awesomeness burning, so when an idea pops into my head, I have to act on it QUICKLY or I might lose the spark. Correction, I will lose the spark! It’s not often that my schedule allows me to drop everything and bust out my DIY supplies to turn an idea into reality, but this weekend, I was able to do just that and the boys were more than game to help!
Since we’re only a week out from Easter, when my DIY Splatter Paint Bunny Garland idea came to me, I grabbed my supplies, the littles and headed out back for a splatter painting sesh! The weather was perfect and they were stoked for our “painting party”! It was now or never. I mean…we’re literally days away from Easter, but I knew this garland would be the perfect final touch to my super simple Easter mantel already in place. Read – I had previously put ONE gold bunny on the mantel and was 100% content with what I had going on…until now!
Read on to see what I used to make the garland and then see it in action on my chic, simple and modern Easter mantel!
When I first got the idea, I went straight to the computer and found this image via Boys, Buildings, Books and Berries, saved it and then sized the image to a 4″ x 6″. I was able to fit 2 per page and then printed 6 copies.
The 3 of us were all geared up to work and I really thought I would be able to show the boys how to do it, then they would take turns splattering the bunnies with the perfect amounts of black and gold and we’d call it a day. Buuuut I quickly realized they weren’t interested in following my very specific instructions and would much rather just PAINT!!
So they did that…
while I did this…
First, I squeezed a quarter size amount of both paints out on the paper plate and dipped my brush in the gold, swirling it around to make sure I had plenty on the brush. I then took the brush in my left hand, pulled back the bristles with my right index finger and flicked my left wrist downward simultaneously to put additional pressure on the brush. This caused the paint to “splatter” onto the paper. I played around with a few different movements to get different types of splats. [Is that even a word?!! Let’s pretend, yes.]
This is about 10-15 splats!
I splatted gold across both bunnies on the paper first, about 40-50 flicks before moving on to black. After rinsing my brush out after the black was splatted on, I repeated this for each of the 6 sheets of paper. Another method I tried was simply holding the brush above the paper and tapping the brush and letting the paint drip. I also tried dipping the brush in water, then into the paint and then tapping it to get the paint to fall off the brush a bit easier.
The bunnies sat out to dry for about an hour or so. Then I simply cut out the bunnies and using my hole-punch, made 2 punches near the bunny’s forehead. Originally, I was going to hole-punch the ears, but thought they were too darn cute and decided to leave them untouched.
I made my hole punches near where the bunny’s eyes would be 😉
From there, I took my long piece of ribbon and inserted the end into one hole from underneath and then down from the top of the other hole.
It will look like this…
Once all 12 bunnies made their way onto the ribbon, I attached it to the mantel. By “attach”, I mean I stuck one end of the ribbon under the gold bunny and the other end of the ribbon under the brass book-end on the opposite side.
I shifted the bunnies a little closer together so they all hung below the mantel and so there was enough ribbon to tuck under my gold objects! I normally use mini command hooks like when I did my Valentine’s Day mantel.
They work like a charm, but I was feeling lazy so I opted to use what was already in place!
Each bunny has a slightly different look to it given the different splatter patterns which is what I love about this technique!
Part of me can’t decide if these look fabulous or if it really does look like the littles made them HA!
Either way, they’re up to stay for the next week!
I think I might try the splatter method out on a larger piece of paper or canvas and see how it would look as a piece of art! What do you think?
And since I didn’t decorate for Easter anywhere else, we’ll call this my Easter Home Tour as well 😉
In other news…You may have noticed that the Spring 2017 One Room Challenge kicked off last week, but I didn’t post a week one update…well, I’m still mulling over whether or not I’m going to jump in and participate. [See my ORC Guest Room here and ORC Dining Room here.] I originally wanted to overhaul our kitchen this Spring and thought it would be the perfect space for the ORC, but budget and time constraints turned that idea into a big fat NO. I then thought about doing a smaller space and just giving it a good zhush, so we’ll see if I can get a vision solidified. If I do, then you’ll be the first to know!
I just might get all sorts of crazy and try to make something happen in the next 4-5 weeks. Stay tuned 😉
