I love to create faux finishes, especially metal ones. You might remember when I made glass look like pewter or when I made plastic look like metal. The finish I’m going to show you today is really easy to do! Use metallic finish paints to create a great faux galvanized steel finish on wood surfaces.
This project was inspired by a wall organizer that I saw at Restoration Hardware. I used unfinished wood boxes to make a wall organizer that will look awesome in my son’s room.
This post first appeared at Crafts Unleashed, where I was on the Design Team.
Supplies:
- Wood Boxes with lids (3)
- Metallic Paint: Silver, Onyx, and Pearl
- Stencil
- Wood Glue
- Sea sponge
- Staple gun
Step one: Use the wood glue to attach the top of the lid to the box as pictured. When the wood glue has dried, use a staple gun to make sure the pieces stay together.
Step two: Paint the boxes with one application of silver paint and let them dry.
Step three: To create the faux galvanized steel effect, you’ll need to layer the paint colors while the paint is still wet. To prep for this, add a small amount of the metallic silver, black, and white paints to a ceramic palette dish. Work on one section of each box at a time. Follow these steps:
- Apply the silver paint.
- Sponge the black paint over the silver paint randomly.
- Sponge the white paint over the surface randomly.
- Use the clean side of a sponge to sponge the entire surface and blend the three paint colors slightly.
Step four: Stencil the numbers onto each box.
Tip: To keep the paint from bleeding under the stencil, use this trick. First apply Silver Metallic paint to the stencil and let it dry. Then dab the darker paint over the stencil. The lighter base color will “seal” the edges of the stencil and keep the darker color from bleeding under the stencil.
Step four: Glue the boxes together as pictured. When the glue has dried use a staple gun to reinforce the hold.
I attached a saw tooth hanger to the back of the boxes so I could hang this organizer on my son’s wall. It’s a great catch-all for lightweight items like pens, pencils, erasers, and small notepads. Plus, it looks great, too! Have fun crafting and creating faux finishes with paint!
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