I found this window at the Thrift Store downtown a long time ago, and I finally decided I wanted to do something with it other than let it sit in the closet gathering dust. It was actually in really good shape--real wood, nice stain and finish---it looked brand new. But I LOVE old, shabby, antique, almost ugly looking things---anything with cracked and peeling paint, rust, nicks and dents...you name it. So naturally, I had to do that to this. I decided to try crackle paint. Let's just say I've been trying to get this project done for about a month. I have FOUGHT and FOUGHT with the crackle paint. My original plan was to do a base coat of soft black paint, then use the crackle paint with a white coat over the top, so you could see the black cracks through the white. Well, I can't even tell you how many layers of black, crackle, then white I have on this baby. It was so frustrating trying to get the white paint to go on evenly with only one or two strokes (with crackle paint, if you overbrush it WON'T work). All I ended up with was streaky looking white paint, a few cracks, and lots of black showing through in a not very pretty way. Occasionally I'd get one side to look perfect, but the other sides looked horrible. I finally gave up and decided the black and white was way too stark of a contrast and that is why it wasn't working. So I went for a white base, then crackle, and a blue top coat. It WORKED! Boy was that a relief. I thought there was something wrong with me! After I did the white, crackle, then blue, I used some walnut ink stain over the top and stained it to give it an even older look. I finished it off with a sealer.{Before the walnut ink stain}
{After the walnut ink stain} (please excuse the spots on the mirror--I hadn't cleaned it yet!)
{After} Doesn't the vinyl bird on the wall add a nice touch? :-)
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