Make Custom Color Chalk-y Paint

Have you ever wanted to have a chalk paint in a specific

color to match a fabric or wall color? 
Want to know how to make chalk paint at home?
 Here is a "recipe" that I  have used on

 several projects that uses easy to obtain ingredients:

1 ounce of latex or acrylic paint

1 heaping tablespoon of powdered wall texture

(available at home improvement stores)

1 tablespoon of water

(add a little more water if it is too thick)

The most recent project that I used "the recipe" on was a 

roadside rescue cabinet.  I am in the season of life where my 

89-year old father needs to live with me for a while.  

After my sister, who lives in North Carolina and loves to 

rescue and repaint furniture, dropped Daddy off at my house,

she called me excitedly telling me that she saw a cabinet

beside the road that I should go get and put in the guest room.

The cabinet has a few "issues" so that is probably why it was

discarded by a sane person.  There a plenty of other things I 

SHOULD be spending my time on besides trying to revive a

cardboard, plastic and particle board cabinet but I actually do

need a place for Daddy to put his socks, underwear and P.J.s.

I realized that the above picture shows a few things smashed

underneath the broken cabinet that I need to be doing instead

 of starting a new painting project but I can't resist. 

To make it easier to lift the cabinet by myself to put it in the 

back of my SUV, I took the shelves out...they are in good shape.

The front door of the cabinet is warped and buckled.

The side rails of the door actually pulled away from the 

horizontal pieces when I got my husband to help me carry

it in the house to fix it up and paint it. Although there is 

probably not much real wood in this piece, I did use wood

glue to try to put it back together.

A lot of the messy glue job just peeled off of the plastic 

finish on the door. The rest of the glue got sanded down some

 and in the end, added some dimension to the surface.

The folks who put the cabinet out on the street were nice to

also put the pieces of the broken off leg out also.

It also got a lot of wood glue for a quick fix. 

Once the cabinet was in functional shape, I got to start on the 

fun part....painting. To try to mask some of the imperfections,

I decided to try a rustic, worn-over-time three color finish.

 The main fabric in the guest room is a fun mod

fabric that reminds me of the the 1960's .  It has most

of the colors that are used in the rest of the house (green, 

tan/brown, white) with the addition of the turquoise color.

I found the wall color (Sherwin Williams 6465 "Spearmint")

that we painted the guest room walls with eight years ago.

When I took the top off of the paint container, the colors 

were all separated but they mixed back together pretty well. 

Using the original wall color paint with the powdered wall

texture and water, I was able to make a custom chalk-y 

paint to use on the cabinet.  Another custom color chalk-y 

paint that I made to use on the cabinet was the brown color 

that the bed in the room is painted with.  It is "Norwich

Brown" HC-19 by Benjamin Moore.

To pull the green color of the fabric out, I still had some Valspar

"Herb Cornucopia" sample paint left over from the mirrored

screen that I first tried the chalk paint recipe out on last year.
I made it into a chalk-y paint also. 

You can find wall paints or even acrylic craft paints in colors of
 your choosing to make whatever color chalk-y paint you want.

To escape the heat and the mosquitos, I painted the piece in

my dining room.  First I put on two coats of the brown color

to imply that the piece was wooden.  Then I added the green 

color with a dry-brush technique.

The original white finish was really slick.  Maybe I should 

have sanded it down before painting but I have had good 

luck with the chalk paint sticking before (and I am lazy).

When I tried sanding or even wiping the green down with

a damp rag to distress it, some of the paint 
peeled up and the original white base color showed.

I went back over the now white areas with the brown color

again before adding the turquoise color on top.

Again when I sanded the turquoise, some white popped back

through but I just kept dabbing the colors back over the

white spots then lightly sanding until it looked "good enough".

Here are some of my favorite painted places on the cabinet:

I brushed a coat of clear wax on the painted surface to 

help seal it (and hopefully not peel anymore).

The paint just soaked up the brushed on coat of wax so

I got brave an rubbed on another coat of wax with a rag.

None of the paint rubbed off...that's a good sign I think.

There is white trim in the guest room so the white "glass" 

(actually plastic) in the cabinet door might have looked OK

 but since the piece has a rustic look, I was hoping

 for a turquoise-y color for the translucent door front.

Originally, I tried a transparent paint that is used for faux

stained glass projects.  It did not adhere to the plastic

 well and hardly showed through anyway. I peeled it off.

Then I tried painting on straight-out-of-the-can wall color

on the back side (inside of cabinet) of the plastic.

It looks horrible from the inside but the outside looks fine. 

The plastic is less transparent than I thought it would be.

That busted out place in the back won't show and I couldn't

flatten it out to glue it down...no socks will escape.

OK, so here is the little cabinet in the guest room...

...now that it is in the room, I wish I had put more of the
 turquoise color on it.  Too late, it is already waxed.

Another reason I wanted to try the layered three color look

is that there is already a color blocked TV cabinet in the room

and I don't really like match-y-match-y furniture in a room.

Since I haven't ever showed this room on my blog,

 I'll tell you a little about it.  The bed was originally a clear

pine four poster canopy bed.  When we moved to this 

house and this room went with more of a contemporary

look due to the fabric choice, we had the posts sawed off.

Then I painted the bed a brown color similar

 to the brown in the fabric.

Well, for eight years I have been meaning to put some kind

of finishing "something" on the sawn off posts.  

I got these post caps but then I worried that they would

make the bed look "country" again...What do you think?

To keep from having throw pillows, bolsters, etc. to deal with

on this bed, I made this coverlet long enought that the

 bed could just be made up with the regular sleeping pillows.

It was hard to find the right color of turquoise fabric to 

make the dust ruffle out of but I finally found this nubby

cotton by Laurie Hickson-Smith (a designer from the

 "Trading Spaces" tv show) at Hancock Fabrics.

To keep with a cleaner look in this room, I made roman 
shades out of the same fabric.

On the window seat, there is a plate that I found
last summer at Target that had the room's colors in it.

The tv cabinet in this room was originally painted more in
a McKenzie/Childs' style when it was in my teenaged
daughter's room.  It was repainted to go with the mod fabric.

The tv is elevated on a storage bin so that a person 
laying in bed can see the screen easily...classy, huh?

My husband doesn't think that a tv should be in a couple's
 bedroom so if I want to watch tv in bed, I come in here.

I'm not thinking that this is the prettiest paint job I've ever
done but it does help hide the little cabinet's faults. 

The only investment in the cabinet is my time since the piece
itself was free and I had all the other supplies. 

My Daddy likes it for his small clothing items and, 
in the end, that's all that matters. 

I am sharing this at
Show and Tell Saturday @ Be Different Act Normal
Sunday Showcase @ Under the Table and Dreaming
Amaze Me Monday @ Dwellings
Masterpiece Monday @ Boogieboard Cottage
Monday Funday @ Lines Across
Metamorphosis Monday @ Between Naps on the Porch

Inspire Me Tuesday @ A Stroll Thru Life
Wow Us Wednesday @ Savvy Southern Style
Furniture Feature Friday @ Miss Mustard Seed

Pretty Party Poms For Pennies

If your party colors are multi-color pastels, there are inexpensive
packs of tissue paper out there to make party pom poms from but
if you want solid color poms or deeper color poms, the
papers available are harder to find and more expensive. 

As an alternative to tissue paper for party poms, you can use
napkins in your party colors to make party poms from.


These packs of napkins in a dark puple came from Dollar Tree.
There are 20 napkins in a pack of luncheon size napkins and
30 napkins per pack in the cocktail size napkins for (duh) $1.

Since it only takes 7-10 pieces of paper to make a pom, you
can make 2-3 poms per pack of napkins, or just pennies!

To start your party pom poms, unfold and layer same size
7-10 napkins on top of each other.  Line up the edges.

Fold down about 1 inch along the top edge.

Crease the fold with your hand.  Then pleat the same amount
going the other direction accordian-pleat-style all the way
down the remainder of the napkin keeping the folds straight
and as even as possible.

Keeping the folds in place, secure the folds in the center
with a chenille stem, narrow ribbon, twisty tie, etc.

You don't have to cut the ends of the folds but it makes

the pom look more fun.  You can cut in points or rounded.

Spread out the folds.

On both sides of the center, separate the top napkin from the other layers and gently pull it towards the center.

You are less likely to tear the napkin layers if you pull the
layers gently close to the folds and not the edge.
Keep pulling the layers apart.  On the top layers, you need
to pull the layers more towards the center but as the ball 
shape forms, the bottom layers won't have to go
 as much toward the center...it gets easier. 

This pom had 7 layers so it formed more of a half-ball shape.

The cocktail napkin pom had 10 layers and the ends were
cut into a rounded shape.

Since it had a few more layers, it was able to
 have a little more fullness. 


 The napkins are thicker than tissue paper
(which is what most poms are made of) so if you need a
complete ball shape pom, you might need to put two of
these napkin poms back to back.  The thickness of the napkins makes it difficult to have more than 10 layers and still 
be able to pull and fluff the layers at the center point.

Each of these poms cost only 33 pennies!

That is a lot less than you can find them anywhere else.
If you need to complete ball pom (2 of these poms back
 to back) that would only be 66 pennies. 

The luncheon napkin pom (pointy ends) is about 11" across 
and the cocktail napkin pom (rounded ends) is about 8" across.

They have a velvet-y look and deep rich color. 
No one would image that they had their beginnings at
the Dollar Tree!

 By using colorful napkins,it has been much easier for me
 to find pretty colors  for party poms and it is cheaper,
 too, than buying packs of single color tissue papers
 (when I can even find them).
Hope this helps you too!