Poets Paint Vintage White Chest of Drawers

I managed to pick up this 5-drawer chest at a thrift store for $25.00 and it was the perfect candidate for a chalk-based paint overhaul in Poets Paint Vintage White and Blackbird.  And I knew I wanted to use a graphic on the front – something where I could use our name and logo and maybe even put it in French.  The best place to go for graphics, especially for furniture is The Graphics Fairy.  Wonderful vintage graphics.  But I didn’t want mine to look like so many that i had seen on the internet so I ended up tweaking it by using the one outline and bits and pieces from others.  And finally I translated Poets Paint Waterglass Paint into French then found a font that I liked and used Photoshop to manipulate the curvature and size and just printed it out.

Once I had painted most of the piece with Poets Paint Vintage White (an exact match to Annie S. Old White), I then painted the rest, which included the top and the legs with Poets Paint Blackbird.

I then fussed around quite a bit with placement of my graphics before I got it exactly the way I wanted it then taped down the bits and pieces of paper in place.  I then used carbon paper underneath and traced over it with a pen.  Once I had the outline, I removed the carbon paper and my pattern pieces and went over the lines with my black paint pen.  Black paint pens are great and they come in all widths so it’s easy to get fine details.

If I made any errors with the black paint pens I just painted over them and started again.

I used a fine grade (300) sandpaper over the edges and even over the design to give it an aged and worn look in areas.

And finally, I used Driftwood Final Finish Liquid Wax which I applied with a soft cloth.  One coat – let it dry for about 8 minutes, buff it and then applied a second coat, let it dry and buff again.  This gave it not only a nice protective finish but a soft satin look to the finish and I found it was easier to apply than other waxes.