Painted Mini Chest of Drawers

Today I'm going to share with you my before and afterwards attempt at decorating a mini chest of draws which I got at a craft shop.

I discovered my love of painting boxes when I redecorated a sewing box I received for Christmas last year.  Since then I have developed an addiction to painting the wonderful range of wooden boxes you can find in hobby stores.  I like finding boxes which are useful, and this lovely set of drawers is certainly that!

My mistake with this project though, was that I didn't plan ahead enough.

When I decorated my sewing box it was my first box-painting project so I was weary of starting and doing something wrong.  I drew some different designs and asked the advice of others to decide on the best design for the box before even buying the paints for it.

With the drawers I had an idea in my head but didn't do a drawing of it first and didn't mull over my options.  I picked bright colours that I really liked and just went for it.  The result wasn't bad, but it just didn't feel right and I knew I could have done better.

Here is how I first painted the box:

I loved the colours, but I hadn't considered what I was going to use it for or where I was going to put it.  These are very important questions.

Even after realising that I wasn't happy with the outcome of the box it took a few weeks to find the inspiration I needed to find a design I was happy with.

The inspiration came in the form of a little bottle of buttons!

I bought a little bottle of buttons because they were just too cute not to give a home to.  It was then I realised that the mini chest of drawers was quite obviously a buttons and thread container and then I thought it would be nice to decorate the box itself with buttons as a visual for what was inside the drawers.

I played around with the buttons, seeing what patterns I could make, and with the help of my wonderful man decided on the new back-ground colour for the chest of drawers.  Obviously I needed one which complemented the button colours, and cream seemed like the way to go.

So, I set about taking most of the paint off by sanding down the box (wearing a dust mask, of course).

 And using acrylic paint, I painted it in just the one uniform colour for both the box and the drawers.

Next, I played around with different patterns with the buttons and took some snaps to choose which I liked best:





















Next I plugged in my glue-gun and practised the best way to glue buttons with a couple of spares I had on a scrap piece of material.  This was very useful as I discovered it was better to use a pair of tweezers to apply the glue directly onto the button rather than place a blob of glue where I wanted to place the button.

Remember to always be extra careful when using a glue-gun and read the instructions thoroughly before use.











I had to be careful not to press directly in the centre of the button when securing it on the box as the glue could come up through the holes of the buttons, but pressing the edges and using tweezers worked really well.

I was very happy with the finished project and finally feel that I got it right.  I am pleased I did the first attempt anyway because I think the bold colours would work really well for future projects, such as decorating a box for a child; and now I have the photos of my first attempt to draw on for inspiration.

Here's the finished project:

So what do you think?  Was it better before or crafterwards?