Painting Plastic or Metal to Look Like Wood
4 Materials
Medium
I came up with my own method of painting a composite/plastic mirror frame to look like just like wood, using chalk paint. The frame was initially black and inexpensive.
This is a sneak peak of my faux-wood frame that was painted using chalk paint.
The first thing I did was to use coarse sandpaper and go over the entire frame, roughing it up. Then clean with a damp cloth.
Use paint tape to tape the edges the mirror. Start by painting one coat of any shade of brown chalk paint you want, and let it dry thoroughly.
From this point on, you will use a dry-brush method to paint your item. To do this, dip your good quality paint brush into your paint, wipe of what you can along the inside of the paint can, then wipe more off as shown above. I made a thick pad of paper towels, but any old cloth would work also.
I started off by dry-brushing Anne Sloan's French Linen over the entire frame. Don't try and cover everything, do it just as shown above. Make sure the paint is thoroughly dried before going onto each step.
Here I used FolkArt Home Decor Chalk paint in Cascade and put it on sporadically, here and there.
I then dry-brushed Anne Sloan's Old White on. From this point on, you can choose when to stop layering. For me, I decided to add another two colors. When you're finished painting, use dark was over all of this. I used Anne Sloan's dark was.
This is the finished frame, ready to be hung.
If you've sanded well, the scratches from the sandpaper will make it look like grooves and marks, just like with wood.
If you'd like to read more and see more details, click on the link below.
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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Such an amazing technique, you'd never think that it was metal. It looks real
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This looks so real! I want a black frame mirror and picture too look white washed white.
How would this be done.
Thanks. I never tried this before so reallly green at it..lol
In your post, you state that you added 2 more colors- what colors did you add?