When I first brought home a box of wood items from an auction my husband tried to throw these away! I was not positive what they were but knew they were just too interesting to throw away. And after doing a little research (I love when I can say this to my husband) I was right and found out they were antique hat stands.
The one was broken but it was an easy fix with a little glue and new screw. After the glue dried all it took was a little sanding and we were ready to go. This was my first attempt at making my own chalk paint which I have to admit turned out great. I think we were off to a good start.
For the painting I tried a new technique I had seen online to use Vaseline on spots that you wanted to look distressed. This was a complete guessing game on what it would look like since I couldn't really see where the Vaseline was going or how much I was putting on.
It was a very simple thing to do and I love the results so I guess I did it right. After I finished sanding, but before, painting I put a little Vaseline on my finger and just dabbed in the places I wanted to look distressed. As I said I just guessed a little here and a little there, but I did remember something about a little goes a long way. I painted as usual and once the paint was dry I took very fine sand paper and rubbed over the piece. The paint only came off in the areas I put the Vaseline and gave me the exact look I was hoping for for I guess it was another success. If you want these areas to be a different color than the original wood you can add another coat of paint prior to the Vaseline.
Another first for me was printing on tissue paper. I found this beautiful graphic on Graphic Fairy and thought it worked perfect on the antique hat stands.
I had seen something about taping tissue paper to regular copy paper and run it through the printer. Sounded easy enough, but after a few unsuccessful tries I realized I needed to tape ALL the edges to keep the tissue flat. Once I did that it worked great.
After they were printed I trimmed the tissue as close to the graphic as I could then just decoupaged to each hat stand.
I was pretty pleased with the final result let me know what you think. Have you tried printing on the tissue paper and if so what worked best for you?
