Crackle Paint Technique

Achieving an aged look is as easy as making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich...two products, minus the bread!   All you need is a bottle of Elmer's glue and a bottle of your favorite acrylic paint to make the effect.  It takes some drying time but the look is exactly like or even better than the already made crackle paint, that costs twice as much.   Of course, it all depends on your lazy factor.  Do you really want to have to apply two products verses one for your achieved look?

(I was reminded of this after writing that!) 

Anyways...

I started with a Michael's $1 wooden frame and painted it white.  This step  is completely optional but I thought it would look cool if the white shown through the paint I crackled.

Once the white paint was completely dry I applied the Elmer's glue.  The thicker the layer of glue, the bigger the cracks will be in your paint.  I liberally applied the glue with a sponge brush and immediately applied my color.  The color I chose was black.

 Glue Layer.

Paint Layer.

Complete paint layer applied.


Allow products to air dry completely.  You can speed up the time by using a heat tool but I don't recommend that.  I've tried it and the heat can cause air bubble production on you project which just looks plain ugly.  Go make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, sit down and relax, if you have to.  The effect is worth the little bit of time you may need to wait.

Before you know it, the crackle begins to show on your project.

Here you can see the white paint showing through the crackle...pretty cool and worth the extra step!

After everything is dry, it's time to embellish.

These are some of the products I used but, you know, you can use whatever you like depending on your desired look.

My finished project is a mini cork board.  I'm giving this as a gift. I made it in the colors of my recipient's home decor.  I also added tacks to match.

This crackle finish is perfect for picture frames and pretty much anything you want to paint to give a shabby, aged look.  It's worth a try, especially if you've run out of that pricey, all in one bottle of crackle paint, you bought two months before...

Like I did!