I needed some extra storage but my budget for said storage was exactly $0. Looking around I had a lot of empty boxes from the move Ugly, yes, but available and the price was right. I really would like some beautiful, vintage, wooden crates. After a quick trip to a few antique stores and price tags of $25-$50. I do not have that gift of finding amazing treasures for $3. Maybe I don't go thrifting enough or maybe that is not a spiritual gift that has been bestowed upon me.
Back to moving boxes... So, at first I just used the boxes to store fabric and odds and ends in the wash area. After a while, it literally made me really mad. I would look at those stupid moving boxes and seriously annoyed that I even had to use them and couldn't go buy beautiful, vintage, wooden, $50 crates! Enough was enough and I busted out my acrylic paints and went to work.
First I did a base coat of gesso because I wasn't sure how well the paint would stick since there was kind of a slick coat on the outside of the box.
Let that dry completely and then did my base coat. I wanted to try and get more of that weathered wood look so I did gray. Let it dry completely. That is a really important part of the faux wood process is to let each coat dry completely before you do the next step. If you don't your colors will blend together and instead of wood grain you'll get watercolors.
After the gray was dry, I took a 2" wide dry brush and added very little black and dry brushed that in horizontally. Dry. Hit it with gray again and just keep going till you get it how you want it. BAM! Anger gone. and spray paint stored away, out of sight it a more attractive and FREE box.
I did a couple more for fabric on my shelves and did these brown.
This one I did for some art supplies that I keep on our table during the day for homeschooling and spontaneous art projects. I made this one out of a cardboard fruit box from Trader Joe's (those clementine boxes would work too) and painting the inside black, add a mug, a couple of mason jars and cute tin cans Stacia made for me and you are set!
This is a pretty easy to do and it was a big payoff for me.
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