Art is subjective, so is furniture art, but when I finished this particular project, I was quietly impressed with myself. Anyway, back to the start, I was particularly keen to get underway with this project as it would have been the first time that I got to play around with Dixie Belle’s Silk and their Gemstone Mousse! Safe to say, this furniture art project had piqued my interest.
I started by taping off a small border around the front and then gave these tall drawers a first coat of Silk in Wharf. I was aiming for a dark, decadent, elegant design with hints of silvers and golds to add that sparkle to my furniture art project. The Wharf would make up the main colour and Black Sands would add a darker border, hence the tape on the front.
Once the paint was down and dried, it was time to play around with Dixie Belle’s Damask stencil, using black Dixie Mud to create a raised stencilling pattern. Like many of the Posh Chalk stencils, the Damask is a repeating pattern. This means that you can line the stencil up again and continue your pattern over larger areas – perfect for furniture art. I wanted to create something eye catching so I was planning to run the stencilled pattern all down the front and sides.
I did have to be a little careful as I wouldn’t be painting over the Dixie Mud, though I could afford a little mess as I could scrape the mud away and I would also be sanding it back after. Still, patience and a good stencilling technique was the aim of the game for this particular piece of furniture art.
Once the stencilling had been completed and dried it was finally time to let the ‘mousse out of the hoose’! Similar to the Posh Chalk Patinas the Gemstone Mousse, is great for accenting parts of your crafting or furniture art projects. Parts like your WoodUbend or your raised stencilling!
As I mentioned before, the stencil was a repeating pattern, this was perfect as it meant all I had to do was align the stencil with my pattern and just lightly brush over it with the mousse to really add a level of decadence to the project. I elected to go for the silvery Diamond and the deep orange gold and, well, amber notes of the Amber.
WoodUbend mouldings time! I had preplanned where to put the appliques and decided to paint them before sticking them down. WoodUbend mouldings can be painted prior to heating, bending and sicking as long as you are using a flexible coating such as Posh Chalk.
On the sides, the WoodUbend would form part of the border, with the ornate 2443 mouldings on each four corners and the thin TR0046 trim joining them up. Whereas on the front, the larger 2093 design made up the corners, this time connected with the more intricate 366-7 scrolls. Finally, in the centre I placed two decorative 2172 centrepiece mouldings.
Painting the mouldings before using them meant I didn’t have to be careful about getting any of the Black Sands Silk paint on my lovely new design!
All my hard work was nearly in vain though. I realised, in my haste I had misplaced one of the floral 2172 centrepiece mouldings, it was off centre. Disaster!
Or not, as the case may be.
Although, once adhered to the surface with a good wood glue, the mouldings stick solidly. They’re really easy to remove and replace – or even reuse. All you need to do is reheat them and pry them off with a craft knife. Ok, I had to to repaint the surface a little, but it meant that my furniture art project was back on track!
I still wanted my doors to actually work, so where the mouldings were stuck across the joins of the drawers, I simply heated them up, grabbed my handy craft knife again and sliced the mouldings. I then waited for them to cool before sanding down any rough edges I left and touching up with paint.
As I alluded to earlier I wanted to create a frame, a border with the mouldings. So I painted the dead space between the mouldings and the edge of the drawers in black too – really framing the elegant raised stencilling. Once that had been accomplished, all that was needed was some more moussey highlights on the mouldings and to attach some diamanté handles (they really catch the light beautifully).
I was pretty pleased with the final outcome. A decadent example of furniture art created from some old linen drawers.
If you enjoyed this short blog, watch the video below on how the furniture art project came to life.
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