Experimenting On Upholstery

by Virginia B

5 Materials

$20

3 Hours

Medium

I've painted quite a few upholstered pieces over the years with great results. And, when a friend gave me this piece, I took is as an opportunity to experiment beyond just painting.

The first experiment had to do with picking the color. I have had so much fun playing with Dixie Belle Paint Company's new Color Lab. The Color Lab is located on their website. You can pick 2 or 3 of their 69 colors and see how they mix together. You can mix equal parts of colors, or adjust them to have more or less of a certain color.

I've played around with it, but never actually put it to the test. I wanted to use a fun, bright color on this piece & finally settled on mixing equal parts of Flamingo & Plum Crazy.

The combination of these two colors is gorgeous!

It can take more coats of paint for good coverage on upholstery, & this piece took 3 coats. I lightly sanded after every coat.

Once the final coat was dry, I sanded agian, & I sealed the paint with Dixie Belle's Easy Peasy Spray Wax.

It really is easy peasy! Just shake, spray & smooth it out. You can use a rag, but I prefer their applicator pad to smooth out the wax. With the pad, I know it won't leave any lint behind to stick in my wax. The spray wax is water based so I can wash out the applicator pad & use it again.

I brightened up the cushion, & the metal base needed to be brightened up too.

So, I used my finger to apply a little silver gilding wax.

So much better!

But, remember this was a piece to experiment on, so I didn't stop there.

I had never stenciled or used gilding wax on upholstery & this was the perfect time to try it.

I used Dixie Belle's harlequin stencil with silver gilding wax, then added a little black gilding wax to the edge of the diamonds.

The gilding wax worked perfectly on the painted fabric.

For one last experiment, I added some flowers using Dixie Belle's Floral Silkscreen Stencil.

I have used the silkscreen stencils on aprons before & found that it doesn't work as well scraping the paint on the stencil over fabric with the tool that comes in the pack. The tool works perfect over hard painted surfaces like painted wood. For me, I get more crisp detail by pouncing the paint onto the stencil with a makeup wedge when applying it on fabric.