DIY: Flock your Chotsky

Did anybody else have a flocked family of tiny animal toys when they where little? I think mine was a family of grey mice. I carried them around in my pockets and built houses for them out of scrap cardboard and toothpicks (early DIY!). I'm sure they still exist in toy stores somewhere in an over-marketed version of their former selves (but that's a debate for another time and another blog). I carried mine around so much that the fuzzy flocking wore off and my little family of mice ended up looking quite mangy with big, shiny bald patches.

Anyway, I guess that story is some kind of introduction to this DIY where I will show you how to flock an old chotsky you might have hanging around on a shelf.  

My chotsky is a little bust of a composer I got in the fourth grade for being in the school band. I've been carrying it around for all these years because I've never quite been able to bring myself to get rid of it. I don't know why, my band career pretty much ended right there in the fourth grade.

Then, one magical day I was in a craft store and happened upon flocking powder in the scrapbooking section. I snatched it up knowing I could find a better use for it beyond the "craft" of scrapbooking. The powder sat around for months, useless, until something triggered the happy memories of my mini mouse family and their fuzzy, flocked fur and I devised a way to flock your chotskies.

You will need three things for this DIY:

::Supplies::

some kind of little chotsky 

spray paint (I used a primer that bonds to plastic because my chotsky is plastic)

flocking powder in a color that matches your spray paint 

::Not pictured::

respirator 

(I recommend wearing a respirator even if you're spraying outside. Spray paint sends little particles of toxic chemicals floating into the air that can end up in your lungs, even if you're in a well ventilated area. Remember, if you can smell it, 

then the chemicals are getting into your lungs)

First, start outside. Wearing your respirator, spray the first coat of paint. Let it dry. Follow the directions on the can for dry time.

Then spray the second coat. Here's the tricky part: while the second coat is still tacky, move it inside (you can try this part outside, but I found it was a little too breezy) and dump a whole bunch of the flocking powder on it. Completely cover the whole thing. The excess powder can be collected and re-used after so don't be shy about how much you're using.

Now let it completely dry for a few hours.

Then take a soft bristle brush and gently brush off the excess powder.

That's all there is to it. I added mine to my little collection of white objects that includes a couple of bottles I made using this tutorial, a sculpture from this, and a lamp from Ikea. I like my space to be clean and organized, but I also have a tendency to collect a lot of stuff, so creating a collection of objects that are all one color, especially a neutral color or non-color like white helps make my collections feel a little more curated and less like a bunch of junk.