I went to a fantastic vintage sale recently with my friend opK (it was Haupt Antiek Market for any of you locals who may be familiar).  They had several really lovely, and authentic, French blue enamelware pitchers.  At $98 each, they were a bit out of my price range though.

However, when I got back home I remembered that last summer a good friend of Mr. Q’s offered me a trio of metal French style pitchers.

Unfortunately, they weren’t the authentic French enamelware kind.  But even though these are inexpensive knock-offs, I thought it would be fun to try to give them an authentic look using paint.

The first pitcher to get a makeover was this one.

I initially planned to give this one a rusty look with the Dixie Belle Patina paint.  So after cleaning it and then giving it a base coat of Dixie Belle’s Midnight Sky chalk paint, I gave it the rusty treatment using their Iron paint and Green spray (for full instructions on this process, check out this how-to post).

While it did turn out exactly as expected, it feels a bit boring to me (more on that in a minute).

I then moved on to the next pitcher.

After cleaning, I gave it two coats of Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth.  Then I added a transfer from the I.O.D. Brocante collection.

I then gave it a spotty rust treatment.

I’d recently seen a YouTube video by The Provincial Farmhouse where she used the Dixie Belle Iron paint and Green activator spray to add some rust to a metal tray that she was painting to look like faux enamelware.  So I decided to give that a go on this pitcher.

Basically I just dabbed some of the Iron paint onto my pitcher here and there and then used a brush to dab the spray over the wet Iron paint (spraying it wouldn’t have given me enough control).

Over time that rust will continue to develop and look more authentic.

I love the sense of age that this added to what otherwise looked like a rather freshly painted pitcher.

After being inspired by those authentic French pitchers at Haupt Antiek Market, I pulled out the Miss Mustard Seed milk paint in French Enamel for the third pitcher.

It had a very shiny factory paint job both inside and out, so after giving it a good cleaning, I painted it with a base coat of Dixie Belle’s Dried Sage.  I knew the milk paint wouldn’t stick to that shiny original paint.  The chalk paint will adhere nicely to it though, and the milk paint will adhere nicely to the chalk paint.

Once I had the French Enamel paint on, I gave this one some spotty rust as well.

And as you can see in that photo, I did get a few small chippy spots.

I added a topcoat of Dixie Belle’s clear wax to this one.

I loved the end result, and I especially loved the French Enamel color, so I brought my somewhat boring rusty pitcher back out and painted over the rust with the rest of my already mixed milk paint.

I noticed that the milk paint was getting a little chippy, and then I remembered that I had added a dark wax to a couple of spots on this pitcher.

So those waxed spots were resisting the milk paint, while it adhered fairly well in the non-waxed areas.

I wanted to preserve that chippy look but still prevent more paint from flaking off, so I gave the pitcher a quick spray with some Rust-Oleum matte spray sealer.  Once that was dry, I followed it up with another two coats of Dixie Belle’s flat clear coat.

And with that, all three pitchers have been transformed.

Now, I fully realize that none of these are going to pass as authentic French enamelware.  But rather than a price tag of $98, I’ll probably mark mine somewhere in the $18 range instead.  So for those of us with champagne taste on a beer budget, these would probably do just fine.

What do you think?