Last summer my friend Sue picked up a couple of old wooden boxes for me.  I painted one of them last summer and I ended up selling it before I even had a chance to take photos of it.

I tucked the 2nd one away to save for a winter project.  I like to have some smaller things to work on when I’m stuck doing all of my painting in the house.

Here’s the outside of the box …

Yep, it was pretty grungy.  And the inside was even worse, making it the perfect candidate for some paint.

Once again, this is a story of an original idea that was modified a few times before I got to the end.

First I thought I’d paint it in Dixie Belle Drop Cloth inside and a dark blue outside.  I have a really gorgeous re.design with prima decoupage tissue that I wanted to use to line the bottom that I thought would work beautifully with that color scheme.

So after cleaning the box, I painted the inside with a coat of Drop Cloth.  As it dried I could see that some of those gross stains on the inside were bleeding thru my paint.  Ewwww!

I could have stopped and added a coat of Dixie Belle’s BOSS at this point, but as I was contemplating the situation I decided that I didn’t want to paint the inside white after all.  Instead I wanted to paint the outside white and add a pop of color inside, and switch up my choice of decoupage tissue.  So I pulled out all of my tissue and chose another option that had a lot of pink in it.

That’s when I realized that this would be the perfect opportunity to try some of the new Silk paint from Dixie Belle for a few reasons.

First of all, the Silk paint has a built in top coat that is washable once cured.  That makes it perfect for the insides of things (cupboards, hutches, boxes).  Two coats of paint and you’re done, no need to add a durable top coat as well.  Once cured, the inside of the box will be washable.

Second of all, and this is key, the Silk paint also has a built in stain blocker.  Holy cow, that could be a game changer.  Why purchase three products; a stain blocking primer (like BOSS), the paint, and a top coat, when one will do?

Third, Dixie Belle had sent me a color that I thought would be perfect for the inside of the box, a pale-ish pink called Conch.

So, I painted a coat of Conch on the inside of the box.  It went on beautifully, and it blocked the stain completely in just one coat.  See …

Now, just a heads up on that.  Although the Silk blocked my stain in one coat, some more stubborn bleeders might require more coats.  Dixie Belle recommends three coats of paint with 4 hours of drying time between each coat for the really stubborn bleeders.

I was really impressed with the stain blocking quality of the paint on my box.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t terribly fond of this color.  I would describe it as a cool, muddy sort of pink with a lavender-ish undertone.  Personally, I like my pinks to be warm rather than cool.  It’s just a preference thing, and this particular color wasn’t working for me.

So I went back to the drawing board again.  I chose yet another decoupage tissue paper, and this time decided to pair it with Dixie Belle’s Gravel Road.

The inside of the box got two coats of Gravel Road, the outside got two coats of Drop Cloth.

Once dry, I lined the box with re.design with prima’s decoupage tissue paper in Celeste.  I used Dixie Belle’s Gator Hide as a decoupage medium (you can read more about that technique here).  I also added a top coat of Gator Hide over the Gravel Road so that the inside would be durable and water repellant.

Then I stenciled two sides of the box on the outside using a stencil from Maison de Stencils and some Gravel Road paint.  I used one of Dixie Belle’s new brushes, the Best Dang Brush, for the stenciling.

I think this brush is meant to be a wax brush, and it would work fantastically for that I’m sure, but I’m loving it for stenciling.  Since it’s quite large with a 2.5″ diameter you can cover a lot of area quickly, which is great when doing these larger stenciling jobs.

Once the stenciled design was dry, I sanded the outside of the box heavily to distress it and then gave it a coat of clear wax.

I popped it up on top of my giant pine cupboard and it would work beautifully there for storing additional items that I don’t need to get to frequently, but I am not going to keep this one.

To be entirely honest, and I probably shouldn’t admit to this, but I never would have dressed up the inside of this box to keep for myself.  I only do that to make it special for someone else.

It adds a nice touch, don’t you think?

As always, thanks to Dixie Belle for providing all of their products that were used on this box.  You can find Dixie Belle products here.