Working Hard and Recipe of the Day

Thank you, Thank you to those who posted a "miss you" comment!
It is so nice to be thought of!

We are on the home stretch and there is so much to do! Work is overwhelming so I can't take any extra time off and the tasks I need to help Super Hubby with at home are tiring!

I am painting, staining, cleaning, moving....you get the picture because you've all been there!

Well, I wanted to share a recipe with you. Since I don't have a kitchen - as you expected it must be a paint recipe.

I wanted the hep green color in my craft room to have a suede treatment - the problem is hep green isn't popular enough to make it one of the available colors - don't understand that! What's not to love?

Anyway, one of my Princess Sister-In-Laws, Deb and I schemed about how I could make my own suede paint. Deb is a fab non-professional designer. She helps her club each year with a home show. A vintage house is selected for a do over and they bring in professional designers and renovators. Club members assist the professionals and learn tricks of the trade in the process of re-doing the house in fab designs. The home owner can purchase some of the items. For the wall treatments and floor treatments I think the homeowner has a budget and the designers keep within that or are out of pocket - not sure how it all works financially but it's a fund raiser for a charity.

Anyway - Deb said the paint was textured - but not as much as sand....I offered flour or sugar, she responded corn meal.

So here's my recipe:

Ingredients:1 roller tray
Enough paint to cover desired wall size, I filled the well portion of the tray (fab color preferred)
1 cup corn meal (any brand, I used Krogers White Corn Meal)
1 old roller
1 paint brush 3-4"

Pre-treatment:
Primer the wall, allow to dry (4-12 hours). My primer happened to be the ugly light blue color I didn't like per the previous post.

Paint one coat in the desired final color with no texture added (that was hep green for me).
If you're using a vibrant color like hep green the coverage will not be even - that's ok.
Allow to dry (8 hours)



Suede Treatment: Fill 3/4 of roller tray or enough paint to do a section of wall (in my case one fill was to much for an 8' x 4' space) but I didn't want to throw off the ratio in case I needed more.






Sprinkle 1 cup corn meal and stir until well blended. This provides a very highly textured surface, adjust amount of corn meal to meet your desired texture.



Fill roller and apply to wall. The beginning of the roll will be very textured and it will reduce as you roll down the wall. Be sparing in the number of times you go over the textured portion. If the texture becomes to thin stop and reload the roller and then continue down the wall trying not to overlap. The corn meal tends to mush down if you over-work it - I did not like that on my sample so I just rolled once down the wall and did one touch up in a random pattern after I did a few vertical rolls. I recommend you go from different directions on each alternating vertical roll - starting at the top down and then starting at the bottom up of the next row for the area to be painted. If you try to touch up seeking perfection you will start to pull the textured portion off the wall and leave a blank hole. According to the real suede paint instructions if doing a large area work in 18" x 18" patches - I just did my entire 8'x4' wall in vertical stripes and one touch up over it all. It seemed to work fine, but again, it was a small area.

Here's a picture of my sample board so you can see what happens if you overwork the paint. Notice the mushed texture







Here it is applied to the wall- the texture is much sharper than the sample board. It isn't perfect or even - it is just "ok" but I decided to leave it alone until it dryed. Unlike manufactured suede paint you do not do the paintbrush "x" stroke treatment while the paint is wet

Allow paint to dry. I gave it a week (but that's because I was busy). I'm not sure of the curing time for corn meal!!!! I would give a day or two to ensure it is totally dry.



Final suede treatment step: (pictures to follow - I haven't taken them yet)
Mix a small batch of the cornmeal paint - this will add another layer of texture to even out spare patches and provide the layering of color associated with suede.

Using a 3" or 4" wide brush, apply x's to the wall randomly. Paying special attention to those areas that were light on texture. Do not try to cover the entire wall with "x"s. Leave small areas of the original textured portion showing. This will give you the different tones of the suede. Mine was darker in patches covered by the roller only and lighter more vibrant on the newly brushed patches. Again, do not overwork the paint. Do not be consistent either. Some thick and some thin, large and small stokes, some vertical and some angled is perfect. However, avoid drips!

I do not have proper light to show you the finished product adequately but I love it - I think it looks just like the suede paint treatment of a manufactured paint. I am pretty critical and I would tell you that it is just "ok" if I didn't think it was "professional" quality....Love the Color - Love the Treatment.

Tip of the Day:
Be brave - paint with food products!