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Snowman Altered Paint Brush

Hello everyone,

I wanted to post a project I did for a swap on Swap-Bot awhile ago as its a little unusual and therefore might interest someone. As you know, often us crafters will decorate anything that isn't nailed down so when I signed up for this swap, I thought "paint brush?....well, why not!"  Then as I got into it, it was fun for its challenge as it is an odd shape. There are plenty of others who feel the urge to decorate paint brushes as I found out searching for inspiration, so you just never know, right?

I bought a narrow brush mainly because I liked the colour of the bristles, they were a sort of burgandy shade. But a wider brush would give one more space to decorate. So I thought I would add a large bow on the handle to add some pizzaz and balance the over-all look. With that, I went to town and created my own metal tags, embossed snowflakes onto the freshly painted handle, made my own glitter felt to wrap around the metal part, and then topped things off with some cute gems. I cautiously hot-glued on stars to the brushes which worked out fine.....so if you ever want to have a different project, try a paint brush, lol!

Hi to any visitors from Swap-Bot!   * SWAP ALERT - scroll to the bottom of this post to read on my advice regarding swaps. I have done many, but there are lessons to be learned.



MY ALTERED PAINT BRUSH



Finished Altered Paint Brush
Its a little hard to see the pretty colours of burgandy and pinks. I had a hard
time photographing this one but take my word it was pretty!


Main tag made with tag maker and metal rim frames, and embellished with ribbon, 
Mr Snowman is stamped, coloured and glittered of course!


more tags!


The embellishing continues!

However, this is a cautionary tale - my efforts went un-noticed by the recipient, my 'partner' in the swap.  She also did not create and send her altered paintbrush to the partner she was assigned. This was my second of only two swaps I entered on the site Swap-Bot. They are pretty stringent about requiring participants to have established a 'rating' before accepting them into swaps. Newbies are only allowed to join in 'newbie-friendly' swaps where the organizer or Hostess arranges a swap that helps newbies to get started. 

Sadly, these people exist who take advantage of others, and at Christmas time too, so sad they feel they must act like that. So be warned, in any swap, there exists the danger that you will not be treated fairly. Usually, the Hostess is on top of things, or ought to be. There are sometimes 'Angels' who will take it upon themselves to help those who were left out, but not always. 

I have participated in craft forums for many years where this sort of thing did not happen routinely, only rarely. In larger swaps where there are not as many moderators as there are people to watch over, I imagine it can be harder to catch these swap trolls. So my final word is: try and hope for the best. I wouldn't want to not try, but if you find a forum that is too big to manage the large amount of swap trolls, find another swap forum. 

All the best. 




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