You Can Always Paint It

On a recent trip to Home Goods I found the cutest rabbit statue for my garden. One problem. I didn’t really care for the shiny silver finish. I was about to put it back on the shelf when I did a mental head slap. I remembered that you can always paint it! This has become my mantra over the years. It seems that I always find something that I LOVE but it is the wrong color! Thank goodness I don’t mind painting.

One reason that I loved the little rabbits is because they reminded me of these cute little frogs from Grandinroad.

However, the frogs were a bit more than I wanted to pay for garden art.

I love the worn verdigris finish on these sweet little frogs!

My goal was to paint my rabbits similarly to these frogs.

 

Step 1:

Give the statue a coat of copper paint.

I always consider where I will be using whatever I’m painting.

Since this will be outside, I am using a multi-surface metallic paint.

Since it is metallic you may need more than one coat.

I painted my rabbits with 3 thin coats of copper paint.

Step 2:

Once the copper paint is dry, it’s time to dry brush your statue with turquoise paint.

Load up your brush really well, then wipe most of the paint off on a paper towel.

Then lightly brush on your turquoise paint.

You don’t want to cover every little thing, rather hit the highlights.

You want the copper to show through.

Step 3:

Dry brush some white paint onto the statue.

I could have left well enough alone, but the finish was a little too bright for me.

Dry brushing on a little white paint gave the finish more depth.

Step 4:

Antique the statue.

Again, the statue at this point looked good, but it just needed a little more depth and warmth.

So I added some antiquing gel.

I painted it on, then with a damp rag, immediately wiped most of it off.

Don’t add too much.

Just enough to make it look a little dirty.

Once it is dry, add a protective flat topcoat to protect your finish.

My sweet little rabbits turned out so well!

I love them so much more now that they aren’t super silver and shiny.

And the change didn’t cost me a lot of money.

Just a little time and leftover paint.

My kind of makeover!

Until next time…

                                                          Be Sure To Pin It For Later!