Take a metal tin from Drab to Fab for less than $1

When I go to Target I ALWAYS check the Dollar Spot. Usually I can find some pretty amazing things in there that I can totally use my crafting thumb to make them into something Fabulous. I saw this metal flower tin and knew immediately that it had a layer of fabulous waiting to be discovered. The metal was nice, but to me it just looked cheap and did not fit in my space very well. Honestly it was cheap. It was only $3 (less with my Red card) and I knew that if I worked some BB Frosch chalk paint powder magic I could totally make this piece into something new and improved.

 

 

Sorry for the terrible pictures, I was taking them in my garage at night, with zero light. I could not wait to work my magic so as soon as I got home I went to work to take this metal tin from Drab to Fab for less than $1.

I had some mint colored paint that I had mixed up into chalk paint using the powder. That part is so easy. I just mix up 2 heaping tablespoons of powder with a tablespoon of water and then mix in my 8 oz sample size of paint, shake it up and BAM I have chalk paint. I decided that I wanted the base color to be mint, so I paint that on there first. I wanted it to look distressed so I was not concerned if a little bit of metal showed, however one layer completely covered the piece with no metal showing.

 

I waited about 5 minutes for the paint to dry and then I took a very high-grade sander block to the piece. The higher the number the less distress you will get. I wanted the letters to show through so I focused on distressing there. I also distressed the corners and edges where normal wear and tear would be. For heavy sanding and stripping, you need coarse sandpaper measuring 40- to 60-grit; for smoothing surfaces and removing small imperfections, choose 80- to 120-grit sandpaper. For finishing surfaces smoothly, use a super fine sandpaper with 360- to 600-grit.

Then I covered the piece in the wax to seal it and maintain the look I had going. This step literally took about 2 minutes. I brushed on the wax and then wiped off the excess with my lint free cloth. Using a lint free cloth is very important, if you do not use a lint free cloth to wipe off the extra you will end up with lint pieces all over your masterpiece and that is most definitely not the look you are going for.

 

After I put clear wax on I added some darker wax all over the piece because I wanted to give it a more antique/aged look. I was careful about placing the wax in the areas where I wanted it BUT I was not super picky because I knew I could remove wax from any area where I added too much. In this picture you can see where I added lots of dark wax around the letters to give them a more deep feel, but there was WAY more dark wax in that area than I wanted…. so regular wax to the rescue.

 

 

I got some regular wax and rubbed it on the areas where there was too much dark wax and magically I had removed all the excess dark wax and I had the deep rich aged look I was going for. Isn’t that amazing?

 

Just so you can get an idea of the amazingness of the Dark and Regular Wax, lets look at a side by side comparison. Before adding the dark wax the piece was still not the look I was going for, but with just the dark wax I feel like the piece looked fake and obviously home-made. It was not until I used the regular wax to erase the extra dark wax did I finally achieve the look I was going for.

 

Seriously?! So pretty!! And this was just using chalk paint powder and wax. I literally used maybe $.25 in product (probably much less). My 8 oz sample size jar of paint mixed with the powder only cost me $5.50 and I only used about a tablespoon of paint on this piece.

Just for one last look at the difference the Chalk Paint made….

Total for this project, including the $3 I spent to buy the tin was $3.25!!! That’s just insane ya’ll!! I am seriously so addicted to this chalk paint powder that the world of project ideas has opened up to me. Before I would have tried to spray paint the tin, and we all know spray paint is not easy to manipulate, and then I would have tried to sand it down and probably been so angry at how hard it was to get the distressed look I wanted and then I would have made a huge mess using stain to achieve the look I wanted and after all was said and done I would have spent much more money on the supplies only to be disappointed because it took me forever, made a big mess and did not turn out the way I wanted it too. Who has time for that? Not me!! But the way I ended up doing it was much easier, much faster and so much cheaper. That’s what I call a crafting win.

 

You can also see my BB Frosch tutorial and review here when I redid my side table.

 

 

And my 15 minute J transformation using BB Frosch here

 

Go here to purchase your own magic of BB Frosch

Have you tried Chalk Painting yet?

Linking up

Tuesday

Do Tell Tuesday littleredwindow.com

From Dream to Reality thediydreamer.com

Titus2tuesday cornerstoneconfessions.com

Create thecraftyblogstalker.com

Handmade ladybug-blessings.com

Tip me Tuesday tipjunkie.com

Be inspired elizabethandcovintage.com

Too Cute funkypolkadotgiraffe.net

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Wednesday

Wow us Wednesday: Savvy Southern Style