My dad is the hardest person to shop for. His favorite things are: Corvettes, guitars, and anything relating to computers (mostly Apple.) Being on a college-student budget, I cannot buy him any of those things. He does appreciate the handmade, so I painted him a guitar for his birthday.

I creeped on my Dad’s Facebook and looked at the pictures he had on there because I couldn’t remember what guitars he even had.  I saw that he had an older Fender Strat- an iconic guitar and I went with that.

I first painted the background using cheap Michael’s paint. I would recommend using nice acrylic paint because the black was kinda muddy and mixed weird with the blue. I painted the lightest area first and worked my way out.

I then tried to paint the guitar bright yellow, but my paint was really translucent (even with a dab of white added to it.) I did four coats and was not happy with the streaks.  ( I even was using nice yellow paint!) I then covered the yellow body of the guitar with Mod Podge and poured glitter on top of it. (I first tried to mix glitter and Mod Podge together, but it would take 4-5 layers to cover it completely.)

I did two layers of the Mod Podge and glitter and let it dry out in the sun.  I then painted the fretboard and the pick-guard. (I know they aren’t perfect, my paint coagulated and my hand was not steady at all that day.)

The painted guitar areas looked really flat next to the glitter, so I did a layer of glossy Mod Podge over it.  Because my hands were’t very steady, I knew it would be impossible to paint the strings, so I instead hot glued 3 wooden beads to the dry canvas, and looped silver elastic thread through them.  Next I hot glued the tail ends to the back/top of the canvas. (Yes I know electric guitars do not have knobs typically, but it does the job.)

It is super shimmery in the sun, and is less orangey in person.  Imagine what other paintings could be fixed/updated with glitter!

Happy Crafting!

PS Happy Birthday Dad!  I love you!