From: To: Subject: [CreativeBudget] sponge painting how to's and a picture Date: Thursday, July 22, 1999 11:46 AM One time i woke up and decided to redo my bathroom. Within 6 hours, i had a beautiful new bathroom. Here is how i do it. I first choose all of the colors i want. I often times will buy the mismatched paint that only cost about $3 a gallon. I usually use a semi-gloss or a satin. Some people use flat, but i hate flat paint! i paint the room with the base coat as you would usually paint. then i let that dry good. Say for instance you have the following colors. hunter green, a seafoam green, a very light green and then a medium green. all the same color really just different shade. i put the hunter green as the base coat. i then sponged the very light green on next. i place the paint in a paint tray, you then dip the sea sponge in water and squeeze out the excess(don't wring) so the sponge is just damp. i then dip the side of the sponge that i want to use in the paint. Look at the sponge and find the best side that will give you a varied pattern, plus be comfortable to hold. then, blot the sponge on the part of the paint tray that doesn't have paint in. you really don't need all that much paint for each color. then when the globs of paint are gone, i might dab it on a piece of newspaper to make sure i have the right amount. Practice on a sheet of plywood if you want to see how your pattern will look. then just dab the sponge on the wall. be careful to dab it. don't move or rub the sponge around. dab on, pull back. and be sure to rotate the spong in differrent directions so that you don't get the same mark everytime. If you don't 'twist your wrist" and rotate the spong you will get a patterned pattern. i might stand in front of the wall and dab the sponge at the top, then turn my wrist and dab in the middle then the top, then the bottom. just dab in a very random pattern. you just do this then all the way around the room. if you dab and cover your wall pretty densely you will get more of a mottled look, as compared if you only dab your sponge on the wall say 10 times per square foot. Practice and see what you like. with using more than one color you will end up dabbing over the previous layer, and this is when it really starts to look nice! Rinse your sponge out in plain water every so often. otherwise the sponge will get globby and won't do a crisp pattern. and usually until you get around the whole room it will be dry enough to start at the beginning with the next color. The colors you use and the way you put them on the wall(ex, light first, then med, etc will look differrent than dark first, medium, light.) also how much sponging will produce differrent results. remember you can always add more dabs, you can't however take them away. I love the effects i have gotten. it is different everytime and have never been dissappointted. i sometimes go back and dab on the base color over the layers of other colors. I also like to sponge fairly heavy, so that not much of the base shows through. If you go to this link, http://www.angelfire.com/pa2/rnmaker93/Raine.html you will be able to see my daughter's room which i sponged. it isn't a very good picture but i used a mauvish-pink for the base, then sponged layers of light lavender, a light gray and a light pink. i wanted a good contrast and as you see i got it. but if you use similar shades of one color(say 2 or 3 colors that are on one paint strip, it will look a lot differrent. try to go at least 2 or three shades lighter or darker, so you will be able to see the differrence. any other questions just let me know. I also have created borders with sponging, i do two stripes and then spong in between them, looks great. Tam --------------------------- ONElist Sponsor ---------------------------- Create a list for FRIENDS & FAMILY... http://www.onelist.com ...and you can WIN $100 to Amazon.com. See homepage for details. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Janet & Deann's new book is finished! Check it out: http://members.aol.com/russelljan/momo.html ----------------------------------------------- CreativeBudget Swap/Sell Board: http://www.InsideTheWeb.com/mbs.cgi/mb612591