This phase believe it or not…took the longest in this whole process.  When spray painting in 1:6 scale, there is one cardinal rule…..PATIENCE.  Multiple thin coats gives the best results.  I had a large computer box that I had saved to do spray painting projects in.  I put a smaller box inside then laid the wall panel flat on that smaller box inside the bigger box.  I have spray painted many, many small pieces of doll furniture but never a large wall panel.  I was a little worried about my finger strength because I know even coverage relies on consistent and even spraying.  I found something in my hardware store that made it soooo very easy to spray paint.

I am never going to do another spray paint project without this handy dandy plastic spray gun.  They are fairly cheap too..double yeah!  I used Dover white Krylon paint formulated for painting plastic.  It took me a good part of one day to paint this panel.  You have to spray one coat then wait about 15 – 20 minutes and do the next coat.  I lost track of how many coats I did but there were more than 10.  It is also important to note that if you are spray painting, you need the air temperature to be above 50 degrees and below 85 degrees for best results.  One other thing I learned..the hard way…make sure you have a couple of cans of  spray paint and that these cans were purchased at the same time.  Much like fabric, spray paint has a certain die lot and if you buy paint at different times, it can have slightly different hues.

Stay tuned tomorrow for The Wall Panel:  The Painting Phase 2……..

I have a collection of what I call “gold embellishments”.  Most are scrapbooking elements.  I also use gold escutcheons ( keyhole cover) and other gold embellishments.  On this wall panel, I used Jolee’s Boutique scrapbooking elements called Leaf Flourish 2 and two larger wood elements that I found at Michael’s.  The wall panels and wainscoting panels are made out of Resin and are made by Lawbre.  I don’t believe they make the large panels I used anymore but the wainscoting is still readily available.  The crown molding I used at the top is Lawbre also.  I ended up using another molding at top of crown molding called egg and dart and I used that on the base board at the bottom to give the piece continuity.  The columns are flat resin pieces found at a miniature mail order shop.  I also used two basic wood miniature shutters on the bottom of the columns to continue them to the floor.  The baseboard for this panel are just two pieces of miniature baseboard glued one on top of the other.  I covered all the seams between the components with miniature 1/4 inch chair railing and used the same chair railing to connect the flourishes on both large panels.  I glued everything in stages and made sure things dried in between.  The picture above shows what it looked like after gluing all the pieces.  All of these components were glued on to a 22inch x 28inch trifold foam presentation board.  The finished panel measures 15 1/2 inches X 18 1/2 inches.

Stay tuned tomorrow for The Wall Panel:  The painting phase…..