top tips for spray paint

top tip featured

Top tip: PlastiKote spray paint plus Ikea hack equals easy spray painting!

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If you use PlastiKote spray paint for painting small home accessories – vases, ornaments, jars and bottles, for example – this is a useful little hack.

Invest in an Ikea Snudda. At around £6, it’s a bargain and can make spray painting even easier and quicker to do. The Snudda is Ikea’s lazy susan, a wooden turntable that is so useful when spray painting small items. It means you don’t have to try and pick up your sprayed item to get to another side, possibly getting paint on your hands or spoiling your paint job – simply turn the table and the unpainted side comes to you!

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  1. Keep it clean! Rather than build up layers of paint on your turntable, cover the top with newspaper and using masking tape to secure it underneath. This will make it easy to remove when you’ve finished your project, ready to be recovered for the next.

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2.  Place the item to be sprayed in the middle of the turntable.

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3.  Start spraying using even strokes and building the colour by slowly rotating the turntable with your free hand.

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4.  Leave your project to dry and then apply a second fine layer if needed. Allow to thoroughly dry.

5.  Finally, remove the newspaper and you’re ready for your next project!

Follow us on Instagram @plastikoteuk for more ideas and projects. And don’t forget to tag us if you make something using PlastiKote spray paint – we love seeing them #plastikoteuk.

For product information, visit the website www.plastikote.co.uk.

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Comp pic Etsy

Competition: WIN a £50 Etsy voucher with PlastiKote spray paint

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Here’s your chance to win a £50 Etsy voucher courtesy of PlastiKote spray paint.

If you’ve never used spray paint and are a bit apprehensive, our advice is to buy one can and try it out on a couple of small projects before tackling something bigger. There are probably a few bits lying around the house or in the attic that you’ve fallen out of love with or are looking a bit tired. One can of PlastiKote Twist & Spray – a great all rounder that works on most surfaces and is easy to use – will do several smaller items. Visit our YouTube channel for how to videos and top tips on using spray paint.

The vase, frame and lamp stand in this picture have been sprayed in Twist & Spray’s Dusty Coral. It took just one can and a few minutes to do each one plus drying time. It’s so quick and easy.

spot the diff in body

This month’s competition is a bit of fun – spot the difference. How many differences can you spot in Picture B (not including the letter!)A 3, B 5 or C 6? Email your answer A, B or C together with your name, address and phone number to competition@spraypaintideas.co.uk and put MAY COMP as the subject. We’ll pick one lucky winner at random after the closing date of 30th June. Good luck!

We run a competition every month and entrants’ email addresses are added to our database to receive our monthly newsletter. If you wish to enter our competition but do not want to receive the monthly newsletter, please state NO MARKETING in your email.

Thank you to everyone who entered our March competition. Congratulations to Liz from Beckford whose favourite project was B – the Ikea table. Liz has won a £50 Ikea gift card so may be she’ll be doing her own table soon!

table before and after

For terms and conditions for the May competition, click here.

Want to know more about PlastiKote spray paint? Visit our website here for more information and lots of inspirational ideas

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How to: Download the NEW PlastiKote spray paint Colour Finder App

SPIadmin

We are delighted to introduce the new Colour Finder App from PlastiKote spray paint.

colourfinder app a

This clever little app will help you find a colour match to, say, a favourite fabric, vase or flower. Take a picture on your smartphone or import an image from Pinterest and this easy-to-use app will enable you to find the nearest colour match in the PlastiKote spray paint range.

colourfinder app2a

There’s a colour palette for you to browse, products to discover and a handy option to find your nearest store. You can even visit the blog and enter our latest competition via the app.

colourfinder app3a

If you’re new to spray painting or are looking for ideas for your next makeover, talk a look at the Tips and Inspiration section where you’ll find top tips for spray painting and short videos to inspire a new project.

 

Apple storeGoogle play

Available on the App Store or Google Play, download the app today!

(Click on the store icon to download.)

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featured

Reader project: make a Gin Bar with PlastiKote spray paint

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The spraypaintideas team love to see how you use PlastiKote spray paint to transform bits and pieces around the house, from simple frame makeovers to handmade, customised furniture – and everything in between.

This gin bar from Rosie on Instagram – _@rosieanne – recently caught our eye, putting two of our favourite things in one project – PlastiKote spray paint and gin!  It’s a stylish and useful upcycle of a storage trolley from Hobbycraft.

reader project - before

Rosie says: “I absolutely LOVE my gin and wanted somewhere to display everything and create a little gin corner without having to splash out on an expensive bar!

reader project - being sprayed

So I decided to create one myself and was surprised at how easy it was to use spray paint. I primed everything first and then used Rose Gold/Copper spray paint on the frame and Night Navy for the drawers.

reader project final

This was my first project using the paint and I can’t recommend it enough. Easy to apply, quick to dry and the finish is fab! Super impressed with the turn out and now I have somewhere pretty to store my gins! (Any excuse to buy more pretty bottles!)”

We really enjoy seeing the diverse mix of ideas and creations using PlastiKote spray paints. If you have a spray paint project you’d like to share with us, email info@spraypaintideas.co.uk. If we feature it on our blog, you’ll get some ‘thank you’ spray paints.

For more information and inspiration from PlastiKote, follow us on Instagram here.

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Galaxy Broom featured

Reader project: colourful Quidditch with PlastiKote spray paint

SPIadmin

Quidditch is a team sport in real life – who knew? We happened upon Megan’s Instagram page – thebroomcupboard  – and saw her fabulous, customised broomsticks for Quidditch players, made using PlastiKote spray paint. Having Googled real-life Quidditch, we were fascinated by this team sport – looks like great fun and good to see mixed teams playing.

Megan loves the sport and explains how she decorates the broomsticks:

“So, I probably should start by saying in Quidditch we use PVC pipes instead of brooms in the traditional sense. I know its disappointing, we don’t fly either. However, it does mean they’re easy to custom paint.

Stormcloak

After making the broom, I draw the design on paper, tape it to the pipe and engrave it on with a Stanley knife. After it’s engraved, I put PVA glue on the sections I don’t want paint on, then when the PVA glue dries I spray paint over it with PlastiKote.

Peeeeeel

The paint dries on top of the glue so I can just peel it off leaving the underneath untouched. The glue also doesn’t strip pre-existing paint so I can layer my designs with lots of different colours. If I need to do small sections, I PVA the immediate area around the design, then use electrical tape to layer paper around the design.

 Snake Broom

After the design is done, the brooms get a top coat and are left to dry before they’re posted off to their new owner.

Galaxy Broom for spi

Quidditch is a full-contact sport and we play in all weathers so the paint needs to be very durable.

 

Image courtesy of CatxPhotography
Image courtesy of CatxPhotography

My first broom has been to several muddy tournaments, twice-weekly training sessions and carted all around the country and it’s still going strong. I still have my first spray can as well, the pigment in PlastiKote is so strong that I only really need two layers, even on black PVC.”

We love Megan’s designs and hope her ‘thank you’ gift for sharing her project with us – some PlastiKote spray paints – come in handy for future broomsticks!

If you’d like to see more of her work, take a look at her Instagram and Facebook pages.

For more information and inspiration from PlastiKote, visit our website here.

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mini make featured

Mini makes: recycle wine boxes with PlastiKote spray paint

SPIadmin

Wine boxes are too good to end up on the bonfire or landfill. With some easy prep and a couple of coats of PlastiKote spray paint, a wine box can be made into something useful and decorative for the garden.

Give the box a good clean and make sure it’s thoroughly dry before spraying. Being bare wood, we recommend priming the box with Twist & Spray Primer before applying the colour. Make sure the Primer is completely dry before starting to spray the top coat. PlastiKote Garden colours are perfect for these mini makes.

Make a mini herb garden…

blog - in copy

…storage for the potting shed…

Box 3

…or even as display shelves for summer plants.

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Follow us on Instagram @plastikoteuk for more ideas and projects. If you’ve been inspired to do a wine box makeover, post it on Instagram and don’t forget to tag us #plastikoteuk. We love seeing your makes.

 

 

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Featured padlocks

Top tip: find the key easily with PlastiKote spray paint

SPIadmin

This top tip was passed on to us by a company that uses various padlocks in one area, all the same make, but with different keys. They tried using different fobs but inevitably not everyone could remember which one was which and would have to try each key until they found the right one.

padlocks before

Their ingenious solution was to use leftover PlastiKote spray paint in different colours to spray each lock and key to make it super easy to match them.

padlock spray painted red

These are the first two they did, spraying the key whilst in the lock to make it a really quick fix! The keys can be kept on the same keyring as there’s no mistaking which key goes with which lock – genius!

two sprayed padlocks

This idea could be used for any set of keys. Spray the top of a key to match a front door, garage door, filing cabinet, store cupboard, etc. Even if the locks are different, it makes it easy to see which one you need. It could be particularly helpful for an elderly person who may forget which key is used for what – colour code their key to match the colour of the door.

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looking after your spray paint

Top tips: looking after your PlastiKote spray paint

SPIadmin

Inevitably, unless you’re spraying a large item of furniture, you will be left with some paint in the can after using PlastiKote spray paint. These odds and ends of paint are ideal for mini makeovers like transforming a picture frame or spraying the lids of storage jars, so you don’t want to throw it away. Here are four top tips for storing a partially used can:

 

2 - Wedding favour jar being sprayed with PlastiKote Twist and Spray in Cameo Pink

 

 

  1. When you complete the project in hand, turn the can upside down and spray on to some newspaper until the gas has been expelled and nothing is coming out of the nozzle. This will clear the tube and nozzle of any paint residue and prevent clogging.
  2. Clean the nozzle with a q-tip to make sure it doesn’t get clogged up.
  3. Store spray paint cans indoors, in a shed or garage where the temperature won’t fall below freezing.
  4. A can of unopened spray paint has a shelf-life of approximately 10 years but once used, it should not be stored for more than two years.

 

2 - Flower pots being sprayed with PlastiKote Twist and Spray Primer in White

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