Spring & Summer Garden Decor How-to with Metal Effects Kits!

Spring & Summer Garden Decor How-to with Metal Effects Kits!

Spring is here! The cherry and Bradford pear trees are blooming beautifully, and folks are flocking out to their patios, front porches, and decks, to spruce up for the season. The farmers markets are swarming with eager gardeners like me, who start slowly, planting smaller container projects to get inspiring, magically instant gratification. Depending upon where you live in the country, frost can occur late into April and even May, so who wants to risk planting too many tender lovelies too soon?

I was thrilled to discover that I could transform a formerly sad concrete planter using one of the new Modern Masters Metal Effects Kits – perfect for small indoor and outdoor projects. The small kits come in Blue Patina, Green Patina, and Rust, and they will be available exclusively for purchase at Hobby Lobby soon.

With Metal Effects, you can update any paintable surface in minutes, and it’s easy and fast, yielding beautiful results, with no experience required. Don’t you love how the blue patina pulls out the colors in the pink-blue blooms, the rusted chair, and my front door, painted with Playful Modern Masters Front Door Paint? And it looks like Mother Nature created it over decades.

Each kit comes complete with full instructions, all of the products you need to cover 1 to 2 square feet.

One 2-ounce Primer

One 2-ounce Oxidizing Copper or Bronze Metallic Paint or Iron Reactive Paint

One 2-ounce Patina Aging Solution or Rust Activator & a Spritzer Cap Attachment

You just need a drop cloth or plastic to protect the area you work in, a container, and a paint brush.

When I found myself itching for something to paint, I wandered out to our very sad, wintery-looking deck. There, I re-discovered this concrete head, all cold, ugly and forlorn, and she was begging for a new look. I decided on the Blue Patina Finish.

Here are the three easy steps for the perfect patina:

STEP ONE

Protect surrounding surfaces from spills and overs-pray. Clean your item well, if necessary, and let dry. Prime the surface with 2 coats of the Metal Effects Primer. Allow half an hour between coats, and 2 hours for final drying time.

STEP TWO

Paint the primed surface with 1 coat of Reactive Bronze Metallic Paint and allow to dry half an hour.

STEP THREE

Attach the spritzer cap to the Blue Patina Aging Solution bottle. Apply the second coat of Reactive Bronze Metallic Paint, and while the paint is still wet, spray on a light coating of Blue Patina Aging Solution over the entire surface. As the activated surface dries over 30 to 40 minutes, a real blue patina finish will appear.

Just look!

I know you are wondering about sealing outdoor items after you use Metal Effects. While the Rust Finish may require a topcoat (included in the kit), no protection is required for both the Blue and Green Patina Kits. Grab a latte, motor off to your favorite nursery for bright, cheery annuals, and your fabulous mini-garden container looks like a million bucks, with little time, energy, and expense. Truly, the kit is all you need for a small project.

My neighbors, my guests and the UPS man are going to be soooo impressed!

Expect to see lots of posts, projects, and inspiration for spring and summer garden accent projects using Modern Masters Metal Effects Kits. You can also go to the awesome Modern Masters YouTube Channel and see video tutorials on using the Metal Effects Rust Patina Kit How-to, the Metal Effects Blue Patina Kit How-to and the Metal Effects Green Patina Kit How-to. The smaller kits will be available in Hobby Lobby soon while the larger kits are available online now at TheHomeDepot.com. If you’d like to buy Metal Effects in individual sizes for custom projects, Modern Masters has hundreds of retailers across the US that carry their product lines. Questions and comments? Write them below!

Modern Masters Cafe Blog Guest Writer and Artist is Debbie Hayes, Blogger at My Patch of Blue Sky & Author of the Color Inspiration Notebook.

Original article and pictures take modernmasterscafe.com site