Sunday, January 20, 2013

A Candlestick Makeover

I was planning to spend time in my studio today and in a way I did, but not on quilting.  I bought this great candlestick a while back - white with antiquing on it (ignore the blue on top where I started painting it).  It sits on the mantel in my family room and blends in with the antique white wall behind it. It hardly shows and I vowed to try and do something with it. 
 I was off to Michaels to get some craft paint; they have so many colors in these little paints.
 I wanted something in a very "grayed" blue green a blue and green with gray to tone it down.
 And started to paint....I really didn't know where I was going with this but as I wiped up spills and excess, the paint looked rather nice where it had been wiped off.
 So now I had a direction, but it still needed a lot more work. You can see where the original antiquing was when it was white.
 My husband suggested glazing it with ink or paint.  I have distress ink pads - great for working on paper and I thought - worth a try.
 When you lift the cover off, you have a pad of ink to lightly rub on the surface of something.  The only problem is that they work best on flat surfaces so I could only use it on the edges.
 I had to fill in with a liquid ink which I did using Winsor Newton Walnut ink.
 I brushed the ink all over and let it set up for a few seconds, then wiped it off. It's starting to look better but still needs more glazing.
 The finished new look for my white candlestick - you can really see it against the white walls.
 So I got the bug and found something else that needed some primping just by adding an ink glaze and then wiping it off.
 It looks better I think...2 fun projects .

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