DIY: Faux Agate & a Giveaway

Oh Agate. I have been promising a tutorial forever now, so here we go. 

I know I promised it on my entry wall, but I have issues:

1- Been crushed for time lately, sorry it a lame excuse, but stripping the old painted wallpaper, priming and painting makes me exhausted just thinking about it.

2- The Mr. has recently given me carte blanche to do whatever ever the hell I wanted to with our bathroom since he decided we are gutting it in a year.  

I know most of you would say why bother doing anything if you are ripping it out.  

I have a blog to run and I need shit to paint so this is one huge "blank canvas" score for me 

(and lets not forget I get bored with stuff FAST, so the reno will be perfect timing for change.)

So agate in the bath, ok? 

Sorry,  I still promise to do one of the other techniques we discussed in the entry.

Instead I give you TABLES OF AGATE:

There are a couple different looks you can get with this technique,  super crispy or big and soft.
This is the top of an IKEA Lack table I am currently "agating", super crispy...

and the Furniture Bank table from last post, big and soft:

You have a couple ways to get these looks.
You can either go BIG (like the Furniture Bank table- lets call it FB),
which I learned is challenging since paint dries fast,
or take it in small doses like the first picture (Ikea Lack table- IKL) that breaks things into 4 pieces.
I recommend the bite sized IKL piece approach to get started.

So I made you all SPECIAL video
(who-hoo so exciting... actually I'm all business so not really)
 that shows how to make the IKL agate happen:

 As far as BIG agate directions:

While painting the FB table my hands got super covered in paint
and I had my 5 year old take pictures. Bad idea.
 They are real blurry and look like 5 year took them. Seriously.
So watch the video if you plan on doing this, or check out the following steps for a half-assed BIG approach. your choice.

What you'll need:

-Something to "agate", painted in a satin or semigloss base coat. 

*paint it the lightest color in the agate, I did white.

-Latex glaze mixed two parts to one part latex paint

*mix it with darkest color in agate, I did Navy Blue

-gloves to keep that mani fresh!

-a softening brush

-torn pieces of cardboard

-various sized artist brushes

-images or pieces of agate

-black and white artist colors to darken or light areas

-cup of water and a rag for wiping up your mistakes

-paint brush to apply glaze

 Its go time!  These directions are for doing BIG agate, but trust me... watch the video for smaller sections.  I learned the hard way here and if I just brushed the entire table top out with glaze and took it off with larger chunks of cardboard it would have been much faster
and I wouldn't have made so many mistakes.

-So first I brushed out a few base lines to follow, and filled in a darker center area...

 I sponged the dark area to lighten and give texture:

 added another line around the center

(I know what all you with dirty minds are all thinking...)

 and kept painting on lines on varying colors of blue/black:

 once I got enough of a base down I let it dry:

and then I covered the whole thing with glaze:

(Here is where the 5 year old steps in and I lost a few shots.)

 Basically what you missed was me dragging a clean dry paintbrush through the glaze, following the base lines to get a strie-looking texture going on in between...

It would have looked much cooler if I used strips of cardboard like in the video. I have no good pictures from here on out, but I can tell you I messed with it a ton and added more glaze to darken it.

and I repeated this for all four sides:

Now go watch the video to see the right way to do it.



I do have a giveaway...
I am giving up this here IKEA Lack Table that I painted in the video
(as nice as it goes with my navy & white kitchen, I have no room for it)
I will be adding a few coats of high gloss polyurethane to shine it up:

Just leave a comment with your name, and winner will be announced this Friday (11/0/2012).


If you have any questions or need help with this technique, just give me a shout!
xo
Danika

AND THE WINNER IS:


#5.... Ann

Please shoot me an email Ann and let me know your address and I will get this over to you!

Thanks everyone for entering!