Metallic Foils are smokin’ hot! They’ve been around the decorative painting world for years, but I’ve just started playing around with them a year or so ago. Sometimes, I’m a little slow to get to the table….but now I’m a certified foil addict and it seems like every new surface finish I start involves the thought, “hmmmm, how can I get some foil into this…”

SO, when it came time to create some new finishes to teach to our artist group in Italy, out came the foils. I wanted to do something cool (and quick) so hit on the idea of using stencils to create a multi-layer foil finish in JUST ONE LAYER. 

On some of them, I expanded by going back and highlighting the pattern with some additional color and on some used the reverse image I was able to get with the foil after applying in through the stencil.

It’s WAY cool!

So, I taught two of these new finishes at our class in Italy, and everyone’s samples turned out awesome-and we discovered even MORE options.

One of our group, Pattie Nickel, loved these techniques SO much she did this fabulous accent wall almost immediately after unpacking her bags.

Isn’t this just “WOW”?! She used one of our most popular stencil patterns, the Foliate Damask Allover stencil. I’m working on some instructional material and “recipes” for these techniques to include a mini-book and DVD that I hope to have in time for the IDAL Convention in July, so I’ll be foilin’ around in my studio quite a bit in the next few weeks…..

I wrote about my Turkish door idea a week or so ago. It’s done and we finally have the room put together (more on that tomorrow!) I photo’d the door before we hung it up because the bathroom is so small I never could have gotten a shot off!

Here it is, all metallic-y and gilty from a combo of metallic paint and Celestial Leaf.

This is a fun shot that Melissa snapped of the leaf laid in place and ready to be burnished.

and a detail of the lower panel of the door. Still using my favorite colors here: Dawn, Moonbeam and Twilight. The effect is so great and the application so easy that we finally got something done to this little table that has been taking up storage space for 5 years.

Coat of black paint and then size and leaf each color separately.

A detail of a Modello pattern on the top (OrnCen170). Cute knob by Anthro, of course!

We are finally getting round to putting the finishing touches on the Celestial Powder Bath. The thing is, once you start to go “over the top” with surface decoration in a room it becomes a runaway train. With extravagently decorated walls, you simply can’t leave other surfaces untouched. They stick out like an ugly sore thumb. And so, we have moved on to the hardware and the inside of the plain white door. As the back of the door will only really be seen when the facilities are “in use”, I imagine that this will become our most popular bathroom in the building. (Once the door is back on, of course). Here is the design-

And here are the samples to test some possible color variations. I will actually be adding some dark brown areas to really punch up the Celestial Leaf colors.

The Celestial Leaf is one of my new favorites toys! There are nine color variations that the manufacturer in Italy has come up with through a special heat treating process they’ve developed. I seem to keep gravitating to the colors Dawn, Moonbeam and Twilight, which are seen in the samples above, but they are all quite gorgeous!