Wall color can really affect the look and feel of a room. Each individual color has a style that can brighten up a room, make a room feel bigger, or even add a sophisticated or modern look to a space. These three fun and decorative techniques will give your walls a beautiful and truly unique look. They use pattern and tonality to create dynamic surfaces that eye catching. Be sure to prepare your surfaces just as you would with any other painting project before your start.

The first technique is a tissue paper technique that creates the look of crinkled paper on your walls. You start by painting an area a little larger than the size of your tissue paper. Then you crinkle up your tissue paper and unfold it. Place it against the painted surface and smooth it out a bit with your fingers. Then paint over the tissue paper using horizontal strokes across the wall. You can smooth the tissue paper with your fingers even more as you go depending on how you want it to look. Continue this process over your entire wall making sure to slightly overlap the pieces of tissue paper.

Another cool painting style creates walls that look like parchment with lovely tonal variety. This technique requires that you use two colors of paint that will be your top coat colors. The colors should complement each other because they will be overlapped to create tonality. You will need to mix one part of each of your chosen top coat colors with one part water. Keep them in separate containers. Do the same and mix each with one part glaze. Also set each of these mixtures in separate containers. Make sure that you have a cheesecloth so that you can spread the paint. Now all you have to do is paint a few short swipes of each mixture. Then you’ll spread them with a damp cheesecloth. Make sure that you spread them in asymmetrical movements. The mixtures and amoeba-like movement of your spreading is what creates the beautiful parchment look.

The last idea looks really breathtaking. It is a simply way to create a fabric pattern on your walls. You will need two paint brushes, a paint pad, and a bottle of water. This technique works best when you mix your top layer coat paint with one part glaze and two parts water. You start out by dampening your paint pad. You then dip the pad into your paint mixture and apply it to your walls. You need to apply it in long vertical strokes. Right after you apply it, take a dry paint brush and drag it with quite a bit of force down the same vertical strokes. You must dry it between strokes and switch to a new brush when your first brush gets too damp.

The leader in a wood working project needs to be able to explain to children the various techniques that will be called for in making any simple projects – such matters as how to enlarge or reduce a pattern, how to trace it properly, how to handle a coping saw or a jigsaw.

Checkerboard method of enlarging patterns:

The design for any project may be enlarged to any desired proportion by placing a piece of tracing paper which has been ruled with 1/2-inch squares over the pattern and tracing the outline. A second piece of tracing paper is then prepared with larger squares to give the desired increase in size.

Preparation of materials:

If the children are expected to trace the patterns themselves, care should be taken that the tracing paper is held securely to the pattern and to the piece of wood to which the pattern is being transferred. This may be accomplished by pushing the edge of the tracing paper firmly into the binding of the book or using clips or cellophane tape to hold the tracing in place.

Shop techniques:

Checkerboard method for enlarging a pattern. Lay tracing paper over the design or pattern you wish to enlarge and outline it carefully. Draw a perfect square around the traced pattern and, with the aid of a ruler, divide this box into any convenient number of small squares.Decide what size the pattern should be and draw a second square box of this dimension. Divide the large box into exactly the same number of squares used in marking off the original tracing. Now you are ready to copy the pattern in the large box, sketching one square at a time until the drawing is complete.This same technique may be used to reduce the size of a pattern, if the box in which the pattern is copied is made smaller than the original design.

Use of coping saw and jigsaw

The difficulty which children encounter in using a coping saw efficiently is largely due to inadequate support for the piece of wood to be cut. The wood must be clamped or held in a vise so that the point at which the saw is cutting is as close as possible to the jaws of the vise or the grip of the “C” clamp.

When cutting with a coping saw, best results are achieved by using short, even strokes directed at right angles to the wood. The blade should be guided by slowly turning the frame, avoiding any sudden twisting of the handle which may result in broken blades. Detailed figures with sharp angles should be cut from the wood block in rough outline form before attempting to reach the more difficult corners. Very acute angles can best be cut by approaching the apex from two sides instead of attempting to turn the corner.