I picked up a pair of wooden boxes while thrifting a week or so ago.
After sanding and cleaning them, I painted them with Dixie Belle’s Endless Shore, which is from their Silk paint line (ie. an acrylic paint with a built in primer and top coat).
I pulled out I.O.D.’s Floral Anthology transfer to decorate box no. 1.
After applying the florals, I added some French wording from the I.O.D. Label Ephemera transfer.
Full disclosure, I have only the vaguest idea of what these words mean so it could be total nonsense. But it looks good to an English speaker.
After decorating the first box, I was about to do something similar with box no. 2. But then I remembered a customer who once told me that she wished I didn’t put French words on everything! So, I decided to go in a slightly different direction on the second box.
I first added some grain sack stripes using Dixie Belle’s French Linen. Then I added the sheep from the I.O.D. Brocante transfer. The little “No. 1120” and the date in the corners are from a Tim Holtz transfer.
I also added a farm name to the side of the box from the Everyday Farmhouse transfer from re.design with prima.
Finally, I applied one of the re.design with prima knob transfers to the top of the box.
I didn’t paint the insides of either box for a couple of reasons. First of all, they aren’t real roomy inside and getting in there with a brush would have been a pain. Second, they are clean inside, so they didn’t really need to be painted.
So far, so good, right?
But this is where I made my mistake. As you can see in the photos, I distressed the edges of my boxes quite a bit. Although the Silk paint has that built in topcoat, the transfer still needs some sort of sealer. In addition, because I sanded the edges down to the bare wood, the Silk paint finish is compromised and will benefit from some protection on those edges as well. Unfortunately, I decided to topcoat with Dixie Belle’s flat clear coat. As I’ve learned in the past, sometimes a water based sealer will draw tannins out of the wood.
Honestly, I should have known better. Look back at that ‘before’ photo, this wood was very orange-y red. The Silk paint has a built-in stain blocking primer, and it was working quite well up until I added that flat clear coat. All of the preceding photos were taken before the clear coat was added.
But about 24 hours after adding that clear coat, the boxes started to show bleed thru.
It’s much more obvious on the back of the boxes, but if you’re familiar with the look of bleed thru you can see it on the front as well. Especially in the area I’ve circled below.
Also, FYI, the bleed thru continued to worsen over time. Be forewarned, that can happen with bleed thru. It has been about two weeks since I finished these and they seem to have stopped getting worse now.
If I could go back and start over I would opt to give these boxes a coat of Dixie Belle’s B.O.S.S., followed by their chalk style paint in Drop Cloth, and then a top coat of clear wax after applying the transfers.
But I can’t go back in time, so now what?
If these were pieces of furniture there is no way I would feel good about selling them ‘as is’, but these boxes? Maybe? I don’t know, what would you do? Leave a comment and let me know!