A little side project-milk paint experiments

I finished up another book chapter; the last chapter is underway.  I took a little break over the weekend to try a little painting project.  The ultimate goal is to repaint a built in corner cupboard in the quilt lab (former dining room).  I want to use milk paint, but thought I would try it out on a small project before tackling a large one.

I follow Miss Mustard Seed's blog and always find inspiration there.  She does a lot of furniture painting and has her own line of milk paints.  www.missmustardseed.com I purchased "mustard seed yellow," bonding agent, and got started.  The paint is in powder form and you need to mix it with water.  The bonding agent is added to the wet paint to give it better adhesion.  This is not far off from what I do at work everyday--mxing stuff up in the lab.  The bonding agent is a latex polymer, which is exactly what I have worked on for 25 years.  Not for milk paint but for many other types of latex paint.

The small test project is a spice box that started out looking like this.  It is about 24 inches tall.  I store little sewing notions in the drawers.

 Here it is with one coat of paint (except one drawer has two coats of paint).

 Following a second coat, I distressed it a little by sanding on edges and the knobs.  I then waxed it with two coats of antiquing wax.  So easy, rub it on, then buff it off.  It is a lightly pigmented wax to give an antique look.

I love the finished project.  I am trying to lighten/brighten up my decorating a little bit.

 

I love how the spice box came out but as for the built in cabinet, I painted a small section with this same color and decided it was actually a little too bright and maybe too close to the original color.  I  mixed mustard seed yellow with white milk paint powder (1:1 ratio) and like that much better.  You can see the magazine photo that was my inspiration in the first place. 

My reward for finishing the last chapter of my  book will be painting the cupboard.  Yes, it is so much fun to do home decorating projects that I consider it a reward!