Antiquing Covers a Multitude of (Paint) Sins!

It's been too long since I last posted! I'll apologize with an antiquing tip! :) Remember the Colonial Blue Cabinet? It needed some antique redware plates to match!

These plates used to be the blue splatterware metal plates that are sold so cheaply at places like miniatures.com. I gessoed them to prime it and then used toothpicks to paint a PA dutch style design. Every paint mark was either a dot or a dragged dot to make leaf or teardrop shapes. Obviously painting is not my gift! Time to cover it up by antiquing it!I use Folk Art Antiquing Polish which does a wonderful job on wood too!

They don't look so pretty close up but with a little more buffing, wiping and placement in a cabinet, I've got antiques!

A little more character for my cabinet!

A Little Bit Country...

... but not at all rock-n-roll! I found this House of Miniatures drysink kit already assembled for $2 at a odds and ends store and decided that since dry sink= country, I would go all out with a aged painted finish like you see in Pennsylvania dutch furniture. It had to be painted because...
... whoever assembled the kit previously intended to stain it and mixed stain with the glue to make sure there would be no glue spots showing when they stained it after assembly. Ingenious! Not the color stain I wanted though, so I got to play with paint. Can you see the dark brown spots at the joints?
Below you can see the silvery grey aging that I added by painting on a mixture of black India ink and rubbing alcohol. It works miracles! After that dried, I painted, sanded, applied stain over the paint and sanded some more.
From blotchy natural wood to weathered and worn, just the way I like it. Now if only I could figure out how to make hardware...