Acrylic paint on pencils?

Question

I went to the store looking for hair sticks (chopsticks for your hair) and couldnt find any, so I thought I would try and make my own using pencils and acrylic paint

Basically I was thinking I would paint the pencils with acrylic paint and then glue on some gems at the top.

My question is will this work or will the paint chip off?

should/can I seal it somehow to prevent this? If so, what should I use? I have a spray shiney sealer and one that you paint on at home.

I bought black pencils (thats the color I wanted for my sticks)

becuse I thought that would be better than painting on the yellow ones.

Answer 1

I think you'd want to roughen up the existing surface of pencils first before repainting them to give more tooth, using sandpaper, etc.

I assume that if you do that, and also remove any oil or dust that might be on the surface before doing the first coat of paint (wiping with alcohol would suffice), and also dry between coats of paint, the paint would adhere well and not come off afterward (keep in mind that it often takes up to a week for acrylic paint to thoroughly "cure," as opposed to just drying, though so avoid abrasion especially during that time).

(You won't need a sealer on any permanent paint.)

You might want to check out some of the cool hair sticks that can be made over chopsticks, other rods, and wire, with polymer clay too.  

If you're interested, check out this page:

http://glassattic.com/polymer/jewelry.ht...

(...click on the subcategory "Hair Sticks" under the Barrettes category...)

HTH, and have fun!

Diane B.