April Showers Bring May Flowers - Paint an Umbrella

Sometimes we come across a fun little project that we can "toss off" in just a little bit of time. This project is one of those. I was asked to paint an umbrella for a Ways and Means activity. The instructions were to paint anything we wanted and to use regular acrylic paint. I took a purple umbrella, so the first design I thought of was a red hat. My design includes purple violets on and around the hat.

If you want to paint a project like this, you would open the umbrella and place the section you wanted to paint over your knee with a piece of stiff cardboard under it. This will give you a firm surface to paint on. If you need to transfer or draw a design before you paint, use chalk because it can be easily removed when you are finished. Then, just paint as you would on any other surface. If I were going to paint another umbrella, I think I might try using fabric paint like DecoArt SoSoft instead of regular acrylics. The SoSoft is an air-dry product so you don't need to worry about heat setting and it is a bit more flexible than regular acrylic paints. Regardless, it is a fun project to do. Windy liked it, too. She had to try it out when I set up the umbrella for pictures.