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Love is in the air! And so are Valentines crafts, of course. I was a little excited to get my hands on Apple Barrel Craft Paints (my sponsor for this post) to mess around with, because I really don’t have that much experience with craft paints. I’m sort of an acrylic paint snob… but when you’re doing a lot of projects with your kids, using professional grade acrylics tends to get a bit pricey.

We wanted to make something for Fen to display her valentines on that she could also keep out throughout the rest of the year and change up from time to time. Thus was born, the Stripey cork Valentine holder. Sweet.

Materials:

• Apple Barrel Craft paint (where to buy)
• Cork board – we used one from Michael’s but here is a nice square one if you prefer
• Big old rubber bands (where to buy)
• Tape – (we used washi-like tape and some slightly wider colored tape)
• Paint brushes (we used wide paint brushes)

Directions:

Tape off your stripes, varying the spacing for maximum coolness. We measured the space between our tape pieces to make sure we kept everything even.

Choose your craft paint colors. (They have tons of colors) We used: #20591, Bright Magenta, #21464 Cameo Pink, #20590 Cardinal Crimson, #21486 Purple Iris, and #20503 White. They come in a few different sizes and matte or glossy finishes; we used matte.

Paint away! We used 2 coats, due to the absorbency of the cork board. The paint dried quickly to a nice matte finish, and it looks great on the cork. The colors were surprisingly vibrant. Look at that pink! I’m sort of excited to have found a new quality paint to use for different projects. (Did I mention all the zillions of colors it comes in?)

Remove the tape and gasp in delight. I will never tire of using tape as a resist for paint- you get such clean lines. Do you spy the secret heart we threw in?

After you’re sure the paint is dry, you can add your rubber bands. We decided to alternate when we added a vertical rubber band and a horizontal one, but I’m not sure if that matters or not.

Important tip: don’t use rubber bands that are to small. They WILL break and snap against your middle finger (twice) leaving said finger numb for 10 minutes. Not that I have firsthand knowledge of this.

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