shabby blogs design

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Is it bigger than a breadbox? No, it IS a breadbox!!











I found this breadbox in a thrift store near our house, and it was 2.99, and a lime-ish green. Not particularly shabby, but I knew it had potential. I played around with some paint- a Caribbean blue color, with some crackling and an undercoat of brown paint. I decided it was a bit too bright for me, not to mention the crackling medium was dragging in places and didn't look good. I think the problem was that the paint was too thick. So, I mixed a bottle of the blue with a bottle of white and it was a bit lighter, and then added some water to thin it down enough so I could get full coverage with one stroke of the brush across and not have the brush drag and mess up the crackling medium. On this project, I tried a different brand- Americana weathered wood crackling medium, in which you allow it to dry. I had previously used DecoArt brand crackling medium which requires you to NOT allow it to fully dry. I think I'm just getting aggravated with crackling at this point (at least on bigger projects), but I have figured out that the thickness of the paint used on the top coat can make a big diference in the success of the attempt. I haven't yet tried the spray crackling medium from Valspar- I so want to try it, but it's 6.50 a can and you need a base coat and top coat color, meaning, a little chunk of change for something you've never tried before and not sure what success you'll have with or like. The advantage of the spray would be that you don't have a brush dragging through the medium and smearing it..... Okay, I'm seriously rambling here. So after repainting/crackling the whole thing, I'm happy enough with it to put in my kitchen, but NOT for bread- I'm going to use it for my dish towels. I'm glad I changed out the knob too, those suckers are expensive though! I have a little set of wood drawers that I need to switch 3 knobs out by the time I'm done and I don't want to spend that money on them, and I need smaller knobs.. but I'm digressing again... Anyhow, I think my distressed little breadbox is a happy distressed at this point...

2 comments:

  1. wow - what a bargain find....

    Thanks for the comments and visit to my blog - I really appreciate it... I've not been great at blog hopping recently so just catching up on a few through looking at my dashboard.

    Hope you are well too.

    Big hugs

    Paula x x x

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  2. I knew that crackle medium must be harder than people were saying. (HA! finger point at everyone who said it was simple, YOU LIED) and here is proof. Paint never does what I expect it to and I have no talent for it. But this is one of the bestest and most honest and useful how too's on the planet.

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