Shiny metallic paint and glitter prompt me to create Christmastime art. This year I came upon a paint by FolkArt called Color Shift. I’ve been pleased with FolkArt paints in the past and Color Shift did not disappoint me.

The area above my Christmas village needed some color. A quick Christmas painting was my intent. I painted the background bluish-black to depict a nighttime sky. After the background was complete, I realized the composition needed something to break up the darkness by accentuating the outer edges. I didn’t want to spend a lot of time fiddling around with a complicated border. Hmmm, what to do?

Stenciling, or printing with an object seemed a good idea for a quick border. Outdoors on my lawn lay exactly what I needed, fallen leaves from my Bald Cypress tree. I also gathered a few ‘holey’ oak leaves while walking around the neighborhood. More on that later.

The Color Shift paint worked perfectly. Fluid enough to fill in the lettering without clumping, yet thick enough to dip my Bald Cypress leaves into for printing. (The paint looks a bit faded in this photograph, but it is only intense sunlight beaming across my work area.)

I needed a randomness of mind when I painted the stars. This is an artistic area I struggle with when painting. I find I quickly become uniform in design when painting a large amount of subjects such as stars or dots. The oak leaves came to my rescue and forced me to leave left brain logic behind and create with the bold randomness of the right side of my brain. I used the holes of the leaves to paint the stars. The pattern on the leaves, created by hungry bugs, quickly depicted the scatter of stars I wanted in the background. I’ve used this technique in the past and once again I found success using leaves as a stencil.

I also indulged the child within me and glittered the trees, top to bottom, with glittery balls and stars. The glitter, very fine in texture and easy to use, was found in the local dollar store in gorgeous colors. So much fun. This project was easy and under twenty dollars. The Color Shift paint was a bit pricey, but any other metallic paint could be used in its place.