I was playing around with thumb tacks today.  Since I’ve recently made a couple of new memo boards (tutorial coming soon) I wanted to make the thumb tacks match them rather than the plain white ones available in the stores.  Since the theme to the new sewing/craft room is in white, lilac & purple, I wanted the thumb tacks to blend in.  And naturally, they had to have some sparkle. These could be used in a home office or kitchen as well.

When I was shopping for Thumb Tacks, this is what I found… white, plain white.

I wanted purple, but there wasn’t anything even close.  Because I am a firm believer in changing something to suit my needs, paint came to mind.  Simple, inexpensive Acrylic paints.  I chose a pearl paint & a glitter paint.

I had a piece of Styrofoam from some new furniture we bought for the sewing/craft room.  This would be perfect for putting the tacks into for drying.   I also didn’t want to get my fingers covered with paint, or get finger prints on them, so I used needle nosed pliers to move them from the paint to the Styrofoam.

I dipped the tacks into a puddle of paint, making sure the head of the tack was completely covered.  Using the pliers, I flipped the tack over & inserted it into the foam to dry.

Repeating the same process, I dipped at least a dozen of them.

Then I got to thinking about what else I could use to ‘jazz’ them up.  Glitter?  Naturally.   Hmmm… Nail Polish!  I’ve got tons of that and they come in such pretty colors!  I put the plain thumb tacks into the foam & painted them right out of the bottle.  I had to give them several coats to completely cover them, and so the the glitter really showed up.

So pretty.  But I found out the hard way, nail polish ‘eats’ Styrofoam!  (oops) Make sure you have a protective surface under the foam before trying Nail Polish.

I guess the hardest part of this project was waiting for the paint & nail polish to dry.

Here are the finished thumb tacks:

Now to store them.  I’d found these little containers in the jewelry making section.  There were 30 mini bottles that have screw on tops.  They’re made for storing beads.  But I thought they’d be perfect for storing thumb tacks & brads.

I now have a safe place to keep all of my new thumb tacks, ready to use when I want them.

And there are still empty bottles for more colors.  I’m thinking some more colors for the holidays?  Maybe for decorating candles?  Ornaments? I’m just getting started.