The Secret Project: REVEALED!  

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Here it is!

I painted my husband's tattoo onto a leather wallet! Like I said, it's for our anniversary - Our THIRD anniversary - and the traditional gift for a third anniversary is leather.

It came to me in a flash of genius - my husband, Greg, desperately needed a new wallet! So I trotted on down to ROSS and got a Fossil wallet for about half the price! I read up on how to paint leather and what I found is that all you have to do is prepare the surface by wiping down with alcohol [to strip it of the oil, so the paint will adhere better instead of slip right off], and then paint on with regular acrylics! There's nothing you can do to seal it, though, so obviously over time - especially something that will receive so much wear and friction - it will crack and wear. That's the idea - the natural progression of leather. You COULD coat it in some wax made especially for leather to give it back it's sheen and add a LITTLE protection against water and such, but I have no idea where to get such a thing - or how much it will cost. We can do that someday, if he decides he wants to.

After I decided about painting the wallet, then I had to decide WHAT to paint on the wallet. At first I thought maybe another Japanese mask, like the bracelet I painted him that he almost broke and was afraid to wear again. I decided against that because I had already done it, so I decided on the tattoo he got a few months ago to honor his mother. It's a Dia De Los Muertos Sugar Skull, especially fitting since that holiday is the day after our anniversary!

There wasn't much to it at all: I took a sneaky photo of Greg's tattoo, fixed it up in Photoshop, traced it on to the wallet using graphite paper [which didn't work very well - only really helped with the general shapes of some things], went over the pencil with black paint, and then dove in! At first I was going to paint it just like his tattoo, but Greg wasn't really happy with the way the tattoo artist did the colour transitions... as in, not at all, haha. And since he's always telling me how he likes my style of painting, I decided to paint it like how I normally would, with my signature colouring.

I started late late Saturday evening [whilst watching my beloved Brit-coms] and finished four or five Sunday afternoon. Personally, I LIKE the way it came out and I was really excited to give it to him! I asked him when he wanted his anniversary gift, since I didn't have anything tangible to give him on his birthday [I was getting him a ticket for a balloon ride at Downtown Disney], and he didn't have anything tangible to give me on our anniversary [he gave me THE CRUISE! haha]. Thankfully he said his birthday, hehe, so I didn't have to stand the suspense too long!

He seems to have really liked it! I know he's afraid to actually use it, because his wallets take such major beatings and it WILL eventually wear/break off, but I'm ok with that! I wouldn't have bothered if I didn't want it to be of use! Ultimately, he'll still have the wallet and I suppose I can always just paint it again. :)

I took tons of photos along the way, so here's the FLICKR album link - Check it out and let me know what you think!

Oh, ps - I FINISHED MY SAILOR DRESS! Jacket, belt, and everything! :D I'll take tons of photos, of course! I don't know if I'll have time to blog about it before we set sail, but I'll try!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 28, 2009 . You can leave a response and follow any responses to this entry through the Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom) .

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