Have you ever wanted to bring the beauty of the moon into your home? With a little creativity and some simple materials, you can create stunning moon wall art that glows in the dark. This unique DIY project will add a touch of magic to any room.
Full tutorial on My YouTube channel:
What materials do you need?
To create your own glowing moon wall art, you will need circular canvas (mine was 50 cm) cardboard, packing paper paper (tissue/ kitchen towel, napkins or even toilet paper will work too), glow in the dark paint, scissors, hot glue, school glue, structure paste (optional), acrylic paint.
These materials are easy to find and affordable, making this project accessible to everyone.
There are many videos on how to make moon lamps as wall art. I even made one myself. In many of the videos I've watched, the main material was cement or another heavy substance. I made my moon from spackling paste (wall putty).
This was my first time working with this material in crafts. You can read the full blog post here .
While I liked the texture and color of the wall putty, I encountered several issues:
⦁ It was heavy, causing my canvas to sag. I needed to put cardboard underneath to support the canvas.
⦁ It was difficult to shape the craters. I dipped various round objects into water. Perhaps if I had waited a couple of hours after applying the paste for the surface to dry, it would have been easier.
⦁ After I did all the shaping, it took a week to dry completely, and it cracked in the middle.
So, I thought, why not try making it from paper? I have plenty of that, and I am a 3D paper artist.
My initial plan was to make it similar to the wall putty moon with a frame and lights, but after I painted the first layer, I decided to make it darker and thought, why not make it different? Instead of a frame, I added glow-in-the-dark gel paint.
If you follow my method, you can paint it in light color and add a frame with some lights to make it look similar to my wall putty moon. Alternatively, if you want a glow-in-the-dark effect, you can add fluorescent paint or combine my two methods and use black light LED fairy lights inside the frame.
TUTORIAL
1. On a circular canvas, use various cardboard scraps to create circles for the craters. Add more cardboard to the middle to make it rounded.
2. After shaping with cardboard, start adding packing paper. You can use newspaper or any other paper. The last layer should be wiping paper to connect everything and add texture. Method is that you need to go from thicker materials to lighter.
3. I recently bought texture paste and used it to shape the craters. It was easier to work with than wall putty. If you don't want to buy texture paste, you can find DIY recipes online.
4. I also used old modeling clay that I didn't like, so it was the perfect time to use it up.
5. After applying the paper layers, smooth out some areas and shape the craters more. Structure paste helps with this. If you want to skip the paste, you can use more wiping paper (or any other paper like tissue, kitchen towel, or even toilet paper) to make a paste. In a container, add water, school glue, and paper in small pieces until you get a paste. Then, use it to even out the surface and shape the craters.
6. After everything is dry, it's time to paint!
7. Choose your paint colors. I added soda to my paint for extra texture. You can use one color or several. In the video, you can see that I couldn't decide on a color, so I used various dark tones and some metallic colors.
8. Finally, I added fluorescent paint gel. I focused on the biggest crater, working outwards like a volcano. Apply the glow-in-the-dark paint in thick layers for a brighter effect. To make it glow, charge it in the sun or with a blacklight UV LED.
9. The glow-in-the-dark effect doesn't stay bright for very long; it fades significantly. It's most impressive immediately after exposure to UV light. I'm not sure if it would be better if the moon was exposed to sunlight throughout the day or if my paint wasn't the best quality. Regardless, my kids were very impressed when I made the moon glow in the dark.
The Final Result
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Acrylic paint on AMAZON: https://amzn.to/3FPPNQZ
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Black light Fairy string lights on AMAZON: https://amzn.to/4cI0vHO
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This is awesome! Im making one for my infant son, we are creating a space themed nursery. Thank you for all the great ideas with you moon art piece.