reveal: faux zinc... the annie sloan way

necessity is the mother of invention, right?

or is it desperation?

either way, time is not on my side this summer.

when a client-friend asked me to do a faux-zinc redo on her grandmother's chest, i saw an opportunity to procrastinate packing i remembered the tutorial i pinned from freckled laundry and whinnied an enthusiastic "yee-hee!".

then i read the post, watched the (fabulous!) videos and pouted about my 20+ minute drive to michael's.


each way.  

out of necessity/desperation, i skipped the ride, ignored the brilliant tutorial and opted for the 30 second walk down to my stack of paint cans. i popped open my annie sloan chalk paint™ in graphite and started painting.  two coats later, i had this:

and this:

then i sanded gently with 200 grit.

biiiiiig difference in color, isn't it?  but then came the clear wax...

which brings out the true color of the paint....and brings me to the spot where i figured i could zinc things up a notch.  see, i'm a big fan of bringing dimension to annie sloan's  annie sloan chalk paint™  by layering colors into the wax as i did here...

and here.  

with some splatters of decoart silver metallic that i had on hand, i simply added a second layer of glitzed up wax and SHAMMA LAMMA BAMMA... 

we have ourselves some faux-zinc, friends!

wanna see some more??

outer shelves pre-sanding, middle shelf post-zincing

ohhhhh, you wanna see the finished piece??   why, of course!

yes, those are my favity-fave satta kuh-nobs from ikea.  at a buck-fitty, how can one go wrong?

do you seeeeeee the reflective sheeeeeen of my not-at-all-metal ziiiiiiiinc?

yes, i love love love this piece.
yes, there is a hidden writing shelf that i'll blabber about in another post on another day.
yes,  annie sloan chalk paint™  is pricey but... time is money, friends, and this paint saves plenty 'o time.
yes, i took a risk and could've wasted a boat-load of time sanding off wax...BUT i'm watching design star and have risk-taking on the brain.
yes, i'm a lucky ducky that it all worked out in the end.

the best, most fabulous part about this zinc-ilicious finish is that it took a day!  just ONE DAY.   annie sloan chalk paint™ can be re-coated in less than an hour.  waxing is done lickety-split.  buffing the wax is a breeze.  the finish is smooth like butta.

so there you have it....faux-zinc finish....easy peasy lemon squeezy, thank you very much annie sloan and decoart dazzling metallics!

(no!! neither annie nor decoart sponsored this post or...even know i exist!)

click HERE for a more detailed tutorial