Hand Painting Flowers on Furniture

Spring is just around the corner and it's a perfect time to paint some gorgeous flowers on your furniture.

I know I say this a lot... but I am in love with yet another piece of furniture. This armoire or Chifferobe is a turn-of-the-century piece that is well constructed and has many beautiful features but was not in good condition. Unfortunately it had been quite damaged over time and the wood pieces were scratched and separating. Despite it's faults though, it has a beautiful mirror that is tillable, cedar in the tall cabinet part and gorgeous spindle legs.





As this piece had never been painted before, I knew I wanted a chippy, well worn look to it when it was done so I decided to use milk paint for it's recreation. Milk paint can be a little bit harder to use than chalk paint or latex, but it creates a beautiful, antiquey feeling finish that is especially lovely when done.

I chose Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint in Linen as it would provide a creamy white backdrop for what I had in mind!





Once the cabinet was the colour of Linen that I was pleased with, I began the process of hand painting a floral pattern on it.
I chose Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint in Apron Strings for the flowers and used it both full strength (on the right) and mixed with some Linen (on the left) for highlighting.





I lightly chalked out the basic design that I wanted to paint before I began.





Chalking it out first gave me a loose guideline to follow as I was painting and allowed me to centre the pattern the way I thought would complement the piece before beginning.





Once the hand painted floral pattern was done, I used extra coarse sand paper to distress the piece to give it a well-worn, well-loved and well-aged look.





I am amazed how completely transformed this piece was with just a little paint and hand painting! What a difference a little bit of paint makes.





To see more gorgeous photos of this piece and the process for painting the inside, drop by the website...






Original article and pictures take http://www.hometalk.com/14414555/hand-painting-flowers-on-furniture site