Chalk painting

I've read about chalk painting and have wanted to give it a try. My first project was a picture frame. It seemed like an easy, small project and if I messed it up it would be no problem to change it up. I started with an idea I got from my daughter, a large picture frame with 4 pieces of twine strung horizontally so that I could hang 4 x 6 pictures from it. I wanted to make these pictures the "adventure" pictures of my family. So I started with my thrift store $5 large picture frame. The painting inside was a canvas of an ocean scene, the paint was peeling, cracking and wasn't something I wanted so I didn't mind getting rid of it. I cut out the canvas because I was after the frame. I did not want to buy a whole can of chalk paint for a small project to I researched on Pinterest how to make my own. I had the color of latex paint that I wanted, I just figured out how to make a small portion of it into chalk paint. If your interested, there are many recipes on Pinterest on how to do it. I also knew I wanted to dark wax it but again didn't want to buy a large can of dark wax. So I did the same thing and ended up making my own out of clear wax and black paint that I had bought for something else. So now I was ready, I had all my supplies made up and ready to go. Painting was easy. Distressing it was easy. I clear waxed it first then came back with the dark wax. I think I came out pretty good. Below are pictures of it. From left to right: first is the chalk paint and distressed, second after the clear wax was applied, and the third is after the dark wax. Then a picture of the final project.

               


So then I got ambitious. I have a hutch that is really nice for storing things, but it is heavy and was badly chipped, the veneer was peeling off, someone had tried to nail the veneer back on, it had stains on it I couldn't get off. I didn't want to move it to Oregon and we tried to sell it in California, but no takers. It's an older piece, 1940's, and it belonged to Mr UAW's grandmother. So for this project I purchased the official Annie Sloan chalk paint. I wanted a certain color, Empire Silk, for my project. And I purchased the dark wax from Annie Sloan. Because I had a large piece of furniture that I was working with, I wanted the color of the paint and wax to be consistent throughout the project. I felt comfortable making my own chalk paint and dark wax for something small, but not something this big. It took 3 days to do. I did chalk paint, distressed it, put clear wax on it, then the dark wax. Just the chalk paint itself was a pretty bright red, but the clear wax gave a depth to the red and the dark wax just made it rich.

before and after 

before

after

       

          

So I have a few more chalk painting projects to do. One in the same red and dark wax, good thing I have some left over. The other project is another picture frame only this one will be black, distressed so the white shows up underneath and just clear waxed. These are small projects so I can get them done in the garage if the weather turns nasty. More to come on this theme later.