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Make your mother’s day with these decorative tiles

28 Apr 2021

Using your choice of tiles or wood, create a faux aged effect using Resene paint and give your mother something she can treasure forever for Mother’s Day.

You will need:

Step 1: Start by cutting your 1.2m length of wood into 6 equal lengths of 20cm each. Use sandpaper to sand the edges smooth. 

Step 2: Prime the wood with Resene Quick Dry.

Step 3: Paint the wood with a coat of a Resene paint colour of your choice – Fleur used Resene Quarter Canterbury Clay.

Step 4: Collect some craft supplies, such as felt shapes, lace, ribbon, faux flowers and leaves, wooden craft flourishes, paper doilies and colourful paper.

Step 5: Use PVA glue to stick your craft items to your board. Fleur started with her flattest items, such as the paper, lace, paper doilies and felt.

Step 6: Paint over these items with more of your chosen paint colour – Fleur used Resene Quarter Canterbury Clay. Once dry, use a slightly darker colour – Fleur used Resene Double Pavlova, to paint shadows and enhance the shapes.  Use a dry brush to paint on some vertical streaks to give the look of wood with your darker colour. 

Step 7: Next, use an even darker colour – Fleur used Resene Ebony Clay, to make some darker shadows. Paint a lighter paint over the top to highlight some areas – Fleur used Resene Eighth Pavlova.  

Step 8: If you want to put words on your tiles, you can either do this free hand or you can trace over a computer printout. First, use a ruler to measure the area where you want the word to go and then print out your word the size you want. Sellotape the printout in place and trace firmly over the word using a ballpoint pen.

Step 9: Remove the print out and you will be left with an indentation in the wood that you can use to fill in with a small craft paint brush and a dark colour – Fleur used Resene Black.

Step 10: To make a stencil look 3D, such as the fleur-de-lis motif Fleur used, print out a stencil image to the size you want and use a sharp craft knife to cut it out. Sellotape it in place and use a small piece of sponge and some of your darker colour, such as Resene Ebony Clay, to fill in the stencil. 

Step 11: Once dry, move the stencil slightly to one side and sellotape it down again. Repeat painting with the sponge, but this time use a brighter colour – Fleur used Resene Pohutukawa.

Step 12: Finish the tiles by gluing the last of your craft items in place. Fleur painted some of hers in Resene Pohutukawa and some in Resene Double Pavlova. Fleur glued sheet music to one of her tiles and brushed over it with Resene Double Pavlova with a dry brush.

If your tiles are light enough, you can attach them to the wall with Blu-Tack. Alternatively you can attach the tiles with an adhesive wall mount to the back of each tile.

Project and images Fleur Thorpe

Published: 28 Apr 2021