On Friday I told you all that I finally opened my Annie Sloan Chalk Paint…which meant I started on a project, of course!
Last summer, while at a friend’s house, I spotted this discarded blanket box at the end of someone’s driveway amongst some other junk. Mr. {aka} so kindly hauled it home for me. {Love you, honey!}
We gave it a quick clean up, a thin coat of paint and added some rails to the inside to turn it into a filing cabinet.
And then it sat at the end of our bed, waiting for a little something-something…and getting all scuffed up by laundry baskets and such.
Until this weekend and a little can of Annie Sloan (ASCP).
According to their website ASCP is a very special paint for very many reasons:
“1. It’s the BEST paint for painting furniture by a long way
2. You can use the paint by diluting it with water to make a wash to show the wood grain
3. You can use it as an impasto ( thickly) – leave the lid off to thicken
4. You can use it on any surface, indoors and out ( the outside of our shop was painted in it- perfect!)
5. No need to prime or prepare
6. The colours are mixed intelligently and the web site shows how you can adapt your colours for your use
7. It’s a girls’ paint, but boys can use it too.
8. It’s flexible so you can be creative and change you mind
9. The paint can be washed off your brush even when you find your brush weeks later. [I never do that of course.]
10. It allows your walls to breathe so it is perfect for cottage walls
11. Extremely low VOCs so it is good for the environment
12. It doesn’t form a skin on it when you leave the lid off – just add some water if it’s too thick
13. Very little black is used in their manufacture so the colours are mixed with thought
14. You can paint it on walls for a soft matte effect or wax it for a polished plaster effect”
I personally found it easy to apply (thinner than paints like Behr), and it dried quickly without odour. It felt a little chalky when dry (before waxing). I applied only one coat, and with just that my little found blanket box turned filing cabinet looked much better.
But I wasn’t finished just yet. I wanted to distress and dress it up a little.
I found this sah-weet graphic at Distressed Decor.
I printed it onto 11″ x 17″ paper. Then I coloured the back with a dark pencil…
And taped it to the front of the blanket box…
Traced over all the letters in pencil…
Which caused an outline of the letters to impress onto the blanket box. Pretty cool trick I read about somewhere in blogland!
Next I used a paint markers to ‘paint’ the letters. I found these at Staples. And. I. Love. Them. The control of markers, but the coverage, look and sand-ability of paint.
I gave the whole blanket box a light sanding with a sanding block, distressing the edges a little more than the rest and then rubbed Natural Minwax Finishing Paste Wax on the entire box and the edges and corners using Dark Finishing Paste Wax.
So what do you think? Do you like the typography and distressing? Or did you prefer the blanket box before?
P.S. The numbers canvas tutorial can be found here.
Great inspiration! Haven’t opened my chalk paint yet and am looking forward to it! Love the stencil method and will look forward to trying that too. I will leave this post in my bookmarked decorating folder to refer to when the time comes…thanks!
Awesome Deb! I think you’ll like the ascp.
It looks AWESOME, I love it! What a neat trick about the stenciling method. I’ll have to try that! Thanks for sharing!
It was too good a tip to keep to ourselves!
It looks amazing!! Love! Great job y’all!
mylifeasamrsh.blogspot.com
Thanks, Michelle!
love love love….let the fun begin.
This turned out sooooo pretty!!! LOVE.
Thank you Amy! Can’t wait to finish the other odds and ends in the room (baseboards would be nice!) and do a post on the whole room!
LOVE The new look! I’m a huge fan of both typography and distressing, and you carried it off perfectly.
Thanks Korrie!
What a great idea! I’m so glad I saw this post, I’ve been looking for a way to transfer an image with any fancy equipment or vinyl or whatever.
Thanks for the inspiration,
Cheers!!
Hi Anne! You’re do welcome! Good luck with your project!
I loved this when I first saw it, and I love it still! So excited to see what you come up with for CWTS!
Thank you Korrie! I can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with!!!
I love both the typography and the distressing, I will have to “pin” you the next time I am signed into Pintrest!
Jo
Oh, we love being “pinned”!
Looove the box! Thanks for the transfering tip…I’ve been wondering how to do something like that, but didn’t know how…I’ll have to try it and see if I end up with something as beautiful as yours!
Did you paint the quadrafoil design on you wall or is that wall paper? If paper, where did you get it? Thanks
We’re glad you like it! It is a stencil. We originally wrote about it here: http://akadesign.ca/?p=4802 and again here: http://akadesign.ca/?p=7309.
It looks amazing. I can`t wait to try this paint!
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