Peeling paint effect – Part 1

Today’s project is making an old looking flower box with peeling paint. I want it to look like it’s been out in the weather for a long time. I’ll also be using fire retardant in the paint so you can see how that works.
Step 1:
Mix the paint and fire retardant 50/50 (or whatever it says on the fire retardant you use).

paint with fire retardant
Paint with Fire Retardant – unmixed

 

Step 2:

You’ll want to rub wax all over the wood you are going to paint. I found an old, Christmas candle that was red. I discovered when I rubbed it on the wood that the red came off, which I didn’t really want. So first I took a carrot peeler and peeled the red off the candle, leaving just the white candle.

Wax candle
Wax candle

 

Rubbing wax all over wood
Rubbing wax all over wood

As mentioned, I wanted this to peel a lot so I put on a lot of wax. You can see it on there, as well as see where I first rubbed the red candle on and realized I was going to need to peel the red off the candle.

Wood with wax
Wood with wax

 

Step 3:

Paint your wood. I’m using just a plain, white paint here.  I did not put a lot of paint on but enough to cover the wood. There were parts where the wood was kind of showing through and it would not have been acceptable for a normal paint job, but again this is ultimately going to look old and worn.

Painted wood with wax beneath the paint
Painted wood with wax beneath the paint

 

We will continue with the fun part after the paint dries so check back in a few days to see how it looks.