Welcome to day 3 of toolbox week!

Today I’m keeping it simple.

This toolbox started out black …

and I’m keeping it black.

Full disclosure, I did prep this one along with all of the others before I’d really even thought about what color I would paint it.  So in the ‘before’ pic above it has a coat of Dixie Belle’s clear Bonding Boss on it (thus the filmy look).

Had I planned ahead I could have skipped that step on this one.  It didn’t have much rust and painting black over the original black would really only have required one coat of Dixie Belle’s Midnight Sky.  And actually, I think I could have even skipped painting it on the outside completely and just worked with that original distressed black finish.  However, either way, I would have wanted to paint the inside to clean it up.

But that’s water under the bridge.  Since I had already given it a coat of Bonding Boss, I went over that on the outside with just one coat of Midnight Sky.

Then, after giving it some thought, I decided to use Dixie Belle’s Silk Paint in Anchor on the inside.

Now, you’re probably wondering why I would specifically choose the chalk mineral paint for the outside and the Silk All-In-One mineral paint (an acrylic paint) on the inside.  So, let me explain.

In my experience, the chalk mineral paint distresses better than the acrylic (a.k.a. Silk) paint, and I definitely wanted to distress the outside.  I also find that the chalk style paint adheres to metal better than the acrylic version.  Although since I started with Bonding Boss, which improves adhesion hence the “bonding” part, that was probably a moot point.

On the other hand, the Silk paint doesn’t require a topcoat and can still be wiped clean with a damp rag once cured.  So it’s great for the inside of toolboxes to create a durable finish with the least amount of effort.

Here’s the inside with one coat of Anchor.

The outside has one coat of Midnight Sky.

Once dry, I added those gorgeous florals from the I.O.D. Saint Germain transfer.

They are just so gloriously shabby, don’t you agree?

And they are perfect over black.

As a final touch, I added a gold ‘label’ from the I.O.D Étiquettes gilded transfer to the top.

I added a coat of Dixie Belle’s clear wax to protect the chalk mineral paint and the transfers.

Easy peasy.

As with all of this week’s toolboxes, this one will be available at my upcoming occasional sale unless someone snatches it up ahead of time by checking out my ‘available for local sale‘ page.