one man's trash is another man's treasure? It can be. I park my car in the alley behind my house and people tend to put potential treasures out by the dumpsters. I still feel weird taking someone's trash, so I always do it on the sly. Anyhoo, I found this box yesterday morning:
Ugly? Yes! But what struck me was it was wood. I love wood and I love wood boxes. I actually saw it and almost walked away, but something drew me to this BRIGHT yellow and blue box.
First thing was first, CLEAN IT! once cleaned I painted the whole thing dark brown. It took about three coats to fully cover it. I let it set overnight and my PLAN was to paint it white , then sand and distress and go from there. I used the following "OOPS" paint from Home Depot. It appeared to be a creamy white....
normally I use Folk Art, Americana and/or Martha Stewart paint, but I knew this box would really soak up the paint and I figured this 'off white' paint would cover better. well it did, however once it dried and I started to sand it, the oddest thing happened, the true color of the paint came out. And what was the color? The one color I was trying to avoid; YELLOW! a bright yellow? No. it was more of creamy butter yellow. it was very subtle, but it was there. and considering I was covering yellow to begin with....well you see my dilemma. I could have painted the whole thing again, but I decided to press on and see what happens. I distressed the whole thing a bit and the yellow really started to come out. Grrr!! I had purchased some decorative napkins some time ago. They are a French Theme, Eiffel tower, Paris postage and French writing, all for $1.99. I bought them strictly to use for decoupage which is what I did in this case. I also took several images from the Graphics Fairy, Antique Mod Podge and this is what I got:
Front
Top
Back
Front and Upper/Under
I am rather pleased how it turned out. Normally when I Decoupage I don't like wrinkles, but since I was going for the distressed, old and worn look, wrinkles were not something I was adamant about getting rid of. I think they add character. I have already put this box to use. I have a few craft projects going on and this box is holding the spare parts and tools. Not only does it look nice, it serves a purpose as well :)
