Have you been to Michael’s Crafts in the last week? Have you seen it? The Martha Stewart Crafts™ Decorative Arts Paints and Accessories by Plaid Enterprises (USA and Canada). Our home happens to be centered between two Michael’s stores, one in Petaluma and one in Santa Rosa, California. As of a few days ago, one has their MSCDAP&A displays all set up and beautiful, and the other store was just unpacking all the boxes as shoppers were snagging up product as it was being shelved. One woman I spoke with was so excited to find black metallic paint for her craft studio decor. It’s just all so exciting! Why? What’s the big deal? It’s this in a nutshell:

A unique, patented Martha Stewart Crafts™ Decorative Arts Paint, formulated to work on all craft surfaces, indoors and out, and is even dishwasher-safe.

Lucky for me and several other crafty bloggers, we were each sent a big box full of The Martha Stewart Crafts™ Decorative Arts Paints and Accessories fabulousness to play with. This is what my incredible stash looked like:The Martha Stewart Crafts™ Decorative Arts Paints and Accessories includes:

• Tools and Applicators:
  • Ergonomically designed, soft-grip, no-slip handles
  • Selection of bristle, foam and roller sets (I LOVE these beautiful white brushes!)
  • Sponges and specialty tools for creating faux finish effects
  • One-of-a-kind applicator tops that convert paint bottles into tools (roller, fine tip, foam pouncer, and brush) -The pouncers come apart so easily for cleaning, awesome feature.
  • Revolutionary Spray Paint Kit enables crafters to apply any Martha Stewart Crafts™ Paint color as a spray paint (Have you ever heard of such a cool tool?!)
  • Multipurpose Heat Tool for cutting, burning and embossing
• Stencils: Stencil sets in a variety of themes and sizes to quickly and easily create designs for small scale projects.
• Mediums: Paint additives create specialty effects, such as Glaze for faux finishes, Antiquing and Crackle for aged effects, Texture and Stucco mediums for rough finishes, and Fabric medium for soft, washable effects on textiles.
• Finishes: Seal and protect using Satin, Gloss, Glitter, and Glow-in-the-Dark finishes.
• Specialty effects: Foil, Flock and Glitter transfers; Gilding, Chalkboard and Glow-in-the-Dark paints; Etching Medium for frosted effects on glass; tintable, waterproof Fabric Stiffener; and Metal Primer.

As if what was in my box wasn’t enough, I couldn’t help but add to my collection while at Michael’s Crafts and picked up the Multipurpose Heat Tool for cutting, burning and embossing, blank stencil film to make my own custom stencils (regular and adhesive), Foil and Glitter Transfer sheets and a bottle of Silver Liquid Gilding.

Of course, any Martha Stewart product is going to be first class, I’ve always known that, so it’s no surprise that all of her new tools and accessories are brilliantly and beautifully designed. But the true rock star of the whole line is the paint, thanks to Plaid Enterprises. As mentioned…for all crafting surfaces…glass to fabric…indoor and out…wood to metal…ONE PAINT! Click here to see all the gorgeous colors and finishes in the Martha Stewart palatte. You can purchase the paints individually or in boxed sets. The colorful finishes include Satin, Glitter, Pearl, High-Gloss and Metallic. Here are the ones I received!For my very first Martha Stewart Crafts™ Decorative Arts Paints and Accessories project (no doubt I’ll have many to come,) I used the Fancy Script Alphabet Stencil Set (although there are so many beautiful decorative stencils to choose from), gold metallic paint and 2.5″ satin ribbon.I stenciled letter by letter using a small pouncer. I was going for a very vintage look and the pouncer worked great in allowing me to give the metallic coverage a sort of weathered effect, but of course if you want full solid coverage you can get that easily with this tool as well. (Note that those little sponged bubbles settle down when the paint dries.)

I used a craft heat gun to dry each letter as I went to keep the next stencil in line from damaging the previous letter. When stenciling cursive, try to overlap and connect each letter to the tail of the previous letter, avoiding gaps between each, this will give a true cursive look. The stenciled letters are attractive as-is, but you can also come back and connect the gaps with a paint brush if you like.Here’s my finished project, a vintage-style Miss Petaluma pageant sash for my vintage-style dress form…complete with stenciled butterfly rosette.(Just think of the possibilities for customizing Halloween costumes with these fantastic stencils and paints!)

If you pick up some of the new MS product, let me know what you make!