Habitat 15 - Hey Habitat

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Habitat 15 - Hey Habitat

I thought you might like to see the result of my summer project: to do up the 30-year-old possum-infested tree house in our backyard. I used Resene Lumbersider tinted to Resene Bush on the outside so that it toned into the environment but I used your KidzColour range (Resene Chaos, Resene Lickety Split, Resene Fizz and Resene Kermit) on the inside which was a lot of fun. It has its own stereo and easel and our two children James and Gemma love it. - Jenny McCall, our winning letter

Wearable paint
I have used Resene paint not on the walls but to dye fabric. Depending how dark you want the finished article to be, you water down the paint to a ratio of about one part paint to five parts water. For pastels, use a one to 10 ratio. One testpot is usually enough for a large piece of fabric or article of clothing. Mix in a large bowl or bucket and immerse the cloth, squeeze and agitate the mixture, lifting occasionally to check all the fabric has been exposed to the colour. After five minutes or so, squeeze the fluid from the fabric and dry outdoors on the washing line. When dry, leave the fabric for five to seven days then wash in a washing machine with detergent; this won’t remove the colour but will soften the fabric. Cotton is more absorbent that synthetic material but most fabrics can be dyed this way. I only use Resene paints as the pigment seems more reliable and colourfast. - Carole Hay

All revved up
A relative of mine, Gary, was on holiday here a few months ago and offered to paint a mural of a Ferrari V12 motor using Resene paints on the garage wall. He is a graphic artist based in Wales and does this type of thing for his job. I think this is the first car motor mural he has done. He said he had never used Resene before and was very impressed with the quality especially when used in the air-brush gun. - Nick Covich

Keeping the beat
We have just renovated our house and took these photos amongst the chaos. Our two-year-old son is drumming mad and spent many hours entertaining all sorts of tradies on his mini-kit. When the painting started he became very excited by the appearance of the Resene paint pails. We were instructed on how they should be arranged and as you can see his drum kit was abandoned for the ‘Resene Kit’. Thank you for the great distraction. It made renovating with a toddler a lot more bearable and even sounded good! - Tineke Sutton, Auckland

Colour for the kids
I recently made a play table for my grandchildren and thought a bright colour finish would be appropriate, so went to Resene and was given your wonderful KidzColour chart. Congratulations to whoever came up with this idea. So then we had to choose a colour(s) for the table and as you will see we ended up with four. Otis (2) is crazy about purple so Resene Giggle it was. Felix (4) loves all colours and chose Resene Fizz. Disy (grandmother) chose Resene Candy Floss and my choice was Resene Wham. The table was used for the first time at Felix’s birthday, and was a great success, as was the paint chart game. Keep these great ideas coming Resene. - John Mead

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