Recently my friend, opK (that’s oar painting Karen) offered me a stack of metal boxes.

Before I got started making them pretty, I gave them all a good cleaning with some Dawn dish soap and the garden hose.  Then I let them dry in the sun, and followed that up with a coat of Dixie Belle’s B.O.S.S. inside and out.  I like to use the B.O.S.S. to reduce the chances that any rusty spots will seep through my paint job.

I decided to paint them all in different colors, which required the use of a lot of paint stir sticks and brushes.  At one point I had six different paint brushes going, lucky I have a lot of brushes.

I started with the largest box.  I painted the inside in Dixie Belle’s Silk Paint in Fiery Sky.

Then I painted the outside in DB’s Sawmill Gravy.  I’d used this combo on a toolbox once before and really liked it, so I thought I’d do it again.

I also already knew I wanted to use I.O.D.’s Redouté II transfer on the outside, so the Fiery Sky was going to be the perfect compliment.

In case you aren’t familiar, Pierre-Joseph Redouté was very famous for botanical paintings, especially those of roses.  I bet that back in the 90’s quite a few of us shabby chic lovers had a Redouté print or two hanging on the wall, I know I did.

I picked up this transfer recently at a brick and mortar shop that’s not terribly far from me called Liza Jane Designs (in Afton, MN).  I thought I’d share her info for any of my local readers who use I.O.D. products because she had a pretty much complete inventory of everything (which I think can be rare in a brick and mortar); transfers, paint inlays, molds, stamps and ink .

This particular transfer is an older release from 2021, but I’d never used it before.  It comes with 8 full pages of roses, so I’m sure I’ll get a number of projects out of it.

I added a small Tim Holtz number transfer to the latch on the front of the toolbox.

I love adding small details like that, and like the bee under the handle (from re.design with prima’s French Labels transfer, which has plenty of bees, FYI).

As per usual, I wrapped the roses around the sides of the toolbox too.

And speaking of wrapping, I’m just wrapping up the finishing touches on the other two boxes and I’ll be sharing those next week.  So be sure to stay tuned for that.

In the meantime, how do you like this rosy makeover?

This toolbox is available for sale locally (details can be found here).

Thank you Dixie Belle Paint Co. for providing the B.O.S.S., paint and flat clear coat used on this project.