The wonderful Jewish holiday of Tu B'Shevat, the New Year for fruit bearing trees, is next up on the calendar, coming on the night of Sunday January 16th, so now is a great time to get crafting! There are so many wonderful ways to honor and celebrate Tu B'shevat, and my archives are busting at the seams, but for now I thought I'd share a fun craft from just last year, milk carton trees!
Best of all, whimical paintings of trees in bloom gracing milk cartons is something one can certainly enjoy for a good few months? I just love painting on milk cartons because the results are ready to display and honestly it is just so darn cute, and unexpected, a great combination! While I originally started I started painting whimsical almond trees in bloom on paper, check it out here, and I then started to explore the topic further on milk cartons, and let me tell you it is truly so much fun! Okay, lets take a look at how to go about painting blooming fruit trees on milk cartons!
You'll Need:
- acrylic craft paint
- sand paper (optional)
- a black permanent marker,
- permanent markers in yellow, pink (optional, but useful)
- paint markers in white and pink
How To:
Lightly sand milk cartons to help with paint adherence (I did not in every case)
If you like working with a background of hearts, as i did in some cases, paint milk carton a solid color, and then paint small hearts on top. In any case, it is generally a good idea to paint one coat of paint before planning your design. So you could choose to simply paint an abstract pattern as your first coat, and then carve out your shapes from that, or whatever pleases you. The main thing is to stay loose, and bring out your trees by adding details with black permanent marker and paint pens at the end, when the magic happens!
As you can see here, I started with a milk carton with a black background, at least at the bottom, and green hearts detailed like cacti, and leaving them as the base for the tree is whimsical and creative, right?
Have fun with this one! And remember, you can always fill your milk cartons with sand, or little pebbles, and use them as book ends, in which case I would add a coat of matte medium to protect the surface.
