Sniff Sniff: an Ombre Tissue Box Tutorial

The title eludes to two things: the subject matter of this post and how sad I am that my birthday weekend is over. Steve planned the loveliest of lovely weekends down in Nashville, Indiana for the two of us. We went hiking in Brown County State Park, visited a few antique stores, and pruned up in our hot-tub room. I’ll wait until my actual birthday (tomorrow) to share some pictures and give you a rundown of our ultra-relaxing trip.

Until then, I want to show you a quick and easy way to spruce up your tissue boxes. You guys are going to have the fanciest tissue boxes on this side of the Mississippi. Unless you live on the other side of the Mississippi. Then you can be the fancy-pants of the West Side.

I happened to find a $6 wooden tissue box cover at Jo-Ann Fabric that would do the job. While I was there I also grabbed three different craft paints in the color of my choice (TURQUOISE!) that ranged from dark to light. And don’t forget the white paint! I just buy the cheap stuff: at 46¢ a piece you really can’t go wrong.

I started with the white paint on top. You never want to start with dark paint because then you’ll have to keep thoroughly washing your brush every time you change colors.

I dragged the white paint from the top onto the sides of the box.

Then I just started slowly adding color, continuing to keep my brush strokes light and somewhat dry.

Water-based acrylic paints dry so quickly so it really ends up being more of a dry-brush technique.

When it was time to start bleeding into a darker color I started with a blob of color in a straight line.

Take that paint and drag it up and down with your brush, blending it into the light color above it.

Now you just continue to work the paint until you get to your darkest color at the bottom.

And…. you’re done! Seriously. It’s that easy. I literally painted this entire thing while I was on the phone with Molly. The painting takes very little concentration and it actually looks better with more inconsistencies.

That’s it! Now go watch The Notebook and cry your little eyes out in style.

I’ll be back tomorrow with lots of pictures from the weekend. I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend. Let the week begin!

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