You won’t mind some April showers if you have a custom painted umbrella to use, and peekaboo designs provide a fun surprise since people can only see them when the umbrella is open. Get ready to puddle jump!
Materials
- Umbrella
- Blue painter’s tape
- Wax paper
- Craft paint that can be used on fabric (we used Martha Stewart satin paints in Surf and Pink Dahlia)
- Paintbrush
- Punch or cutter in whatever shape you want, or an X-Acto knife for freeform shape cutting
Directions
Start by cutting pieces of painter’s tape and sticking them to the wax paper; we do this so we can cut our shapes on a flat surface and then re-stick the tape to our umbrella.
Trace your shape onto the blue tape. Here, we went with the April showers theme and chose raindrops. Don’t worry if your shapes aren’t exactly the same; you will have a chance to cut a more precise line with your X-Acto knife, and you can further refine with a paintbrush later on if you want.
Note: If you are using a shape punch or cutter, you can skip this step and instead get to punchin’ those shapes! You can try polka dots, hearts or stars, for example.
Next, place the wax paper on a cutting board and cut out each shape with the X-Acto knife.
Open your umbrella and stick the cut out stencils of your shape on the clean, dry surface of your umbrella. We chose to paint our shapes on the inside of our umbrella for a fun peek when it’s raining; you can paint on the inside or outside – you choose!
Squeeze your paint into a bowl and start painting on the inside of your stencils. Make sure to keep coats even and somewhat thin; we’ll be applying a second coat later. We chose to paint a heart in a contrasting color freehand to add sweet touch to the raindrop motif, and you can also add names if you want to personalize your umbrella.
Once the first coat has dried, paint a second coat on all shapes. Looking good, no?
Once everything has dried, remove each piece of tape and enjoy your handiwork – and know that next time it rains, you’ll have the most unique umbrella on the block. Who knows, you might even find yourself looking forward to the first April shower!
Would you paint an umbrella to make a “blah” rainy day a little more fun? What designs and colors would you choose? Comment below.