Another Homemade Chalk Paint Project

Today has been catch-up day on my painting. The weather is nice and I can get outside under the carport and paint. Of course, when I got out the spray paint, the wind started blowing so that was put on hold. I am trying to salvage a Pottery Barn mirror that I unfortunately decided to paint. I am hoping that some silver metallic paint will restore it. Also I am working on a chalk board for my granddaughter.

A friend of my niece's had this little table for sale at a yard sale; we swapped some items and I ended up with the table. It has been in my craft room/guest bedroom waiting for a new paint job. It had been stained and varnished numerous times; generally in pretty bad shape.

I had an sample size Valspar oops paint from Lowes. It was my first time trying Valspar paint and I am quite impressed with it.

I added ¼ cup of plaster of paris to the entire jar of paint. It seems that the addition of the plaster of paris gives the paint better adhesion. On a previous project, I used a 50/50 mix of paint and plaster of paris. It was definitely too thick; after adding water it was still just OK. I saw Sherry's "recipe" and changed my ratio to more of a 75/25 mix. Sherry uses calcium carbonate rather than the plaster of paris, but since I have a 4 lb container I will stick with the plaster of paris for a while.

I did not do any sanding; just gave the piece 2 coats of paint and a light sanding after the paint dried.

Here it is drying on the carport after a coat of polyurethane. I usually don't use brush-on poly, but I wanted this to have better protection from water rings since it is being used as a bedside table. I am going to lightly sand the top again and use another coat of poly.

I  have been quite happy with my projects using the plaster of paris added to paint.

I will be joining some blog parties this week.