Crafty Thursdays: Crime Scene Tape Plate







Kerry Hammond is being crafty again. This time she's made the super fun Crime Scene Do Not Cross plate above. Here are directions on how to make your own.

I’m not very artistic, so I tend to migrate toward artsy fun that is a bit more structured. Canvas and Cocktails is a great example of that. It's a gallery in Denver where you get to paint a picture (while drinking wine) and are taken though the process step by step, so there is no guesswork and any amateur can do it. And did I mention the wine?

Another thing I like to do is paint your own pottery. When I saw that my local Ceramics in the City (a paint your own ceramics store, also in Denver) was having a Valentine’s Day event that included a bottle of wine (are you seeing a theme) and chocolates, I jumped on it. Once we arrived, however, I realized that I actually had to create something.

Luckily, the paint your own pottery type places have pre-made pottery that you work with. All you have to do is come up with a design – yeah right, did I mention how non-artistic I am?

All of the sudden it came to me, why don’t I use my love of the mystery genre, and everything crime related, to come up with a theme. I grabbed only 2 paint colors from the shelf and was off. As you can see above, painting pottery can be crime related. I used a straight edge to pencil in the lined crime scene tape strips and then painted 3 coats of yellow paint. 

Using rubber stamps that I painted with sponge brushes, I went letter by letter to fill in the "crime scene" words (using a brush to fill in where the stamp didn’t quite cover). You can freehand these if you’re feeling crazy, but I stuck to the stamps. I think it turned out great and I can’t wait to use the plate (which was meant to be a rippled sushi platter) for cookies at my next mystery book club meeting.

Materials:
- paint ready ceramic plate
- Rubber stamps to spell out Crime Scene - Do Not Cross
- Yellow paint, black paint
- straight edge
- pencil
- sponge brushes
- a way to glaze the pottery (easy to do at a paint your own ceramics place)

Looking for other bookish crafts to make? We have more here.