Bright and Colorful Toybox - Created With Safe and Non-Toxic Products!
Hi, we are Vintage Rust and wanted to share a great idea for a quick makeover for an old pine toy box! Using just the toy box, some BRIGHT and COLORFUL gel stains, a little bit calcium carbonate and a paint sample, we made created a fun and colorful toybox for our friend's son!
This is Alistair's toybox now and he has had it for a few months - both the paint and the Unicorn SPiT look like they are holding up to daily use from an active toddler!
Here is the toybox before - we found it through a friend that does yard sales and auctions and brings us some fun items to makeover! BORING, right? When my kids were little, I remember reading a ton of articles on how kids were stimulated with color in their environment, so I wanted to use bright colors. I knew I had to turn to Unicorn SPiT! if you have never heard of this before - you can find out more about it here: http://www.vintagerustva.com/ or here: www.unicornspit.com
I had just gotten the (then) new Calypso Collection from Unicorn SPiT in the mail and I couldn't wait to use it! Look how pretty and bright these colors are - talk about stimulating!
About to go from BORING to BRIGHT!
I decided to use the Zia Teal as my base - and luckily I had an already mix chalky paint sample that was a perfect match! Zia Teal is one of my favorite SPiT Colors - its a great teal and matches almost every decor! I chalkpainted the base of the box to match Zia perfectly.
I sanded down the old finish of the toybox, just to get to where the gel stain can penetrate into the pin - this is with just a wash of Zia Teal on the top of the toybox!
This is after one coat of Phoenix Fire - aren't the color names fun????? (check out the Molly Red Pepper - its my favorite and it just happens to be named after me! *blush*) Michelle Nicole has a great way of making this too much fun! You have to make sure the SPiT dries well between colors - it was easy with this one, because it was so warm out, waiting just a few minutes between each coat was more than enough.
This is after one coat of Pixie Pink - again a great color with lots of pigment and a cool name - not to mention the smell! Unicorn SPiT smells like jasmine! Its divine! We get so happy in the shop to open up the jars and start a project - I swear Michelle brews a little bit of magic in each jar because you become so creative with it and its so enjoyable to work with!
I layered some Whitening and another layer of Zia Teal and Voila! my first Calypso colored Aura Blast - An Aura Blast is the technique that Michelle developed and is how you get the layering of colors that creates this crazy tiedyed effect! (for more videos on how to do this - check out her page here: http://www.unicornspit.com/pages/videos-and-spit-portfolio)
This is with one coat of Tung Oil Finish - We always let it cure for a bit before we do any other top coats - you can't just do the tung oil finish if you are doing an item that is going to be high traffic, since its not very durable - so I decided to let it really dry (for about a week) and then use General Finishes High Performance Top Coat to seal it. I knew the GF HPTC wouldn't yellow the Whitening and I like the way it goes on.
This is after it cured for a week and the first coat of GF HPTC. I loved the way it was looking!
This is after several coats of GF HPTC - I wanted the finish to be really durable since I knew it would be sold as a toybox and in lots of use - I also coated the rest of the toybox with GF HPTC to seal the chalky paint on the base of the toybox. I sanded with a really fine sanding block between coats and wiped it down before starting another coat - make sure to follow directions and drying times!
Alistair's mom is pretty cool and has gotten several of our items for Alistair's Room! You can see more of our work on FB here - https://www.facebook.com/VintageRustVirginia.
I think it was a success! Alistair loves his toybox! To find out more about Unicorn SPiT, go here: http://www.unicornspit.com/pages/videos-and-spit-portfolio. To find out where to buy GF HPTC, please click here: https://generalfinishes.com/retail-products/find-retail-wood-finishes-store#.ViUfk0ZpBvo
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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2 of 14 comments
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I love how this turned out! The colors you chose are perfect and your little one is toooo cute!
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Fabulous!!! And that little guy is getting a great introduction to art and color.
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