Thrift Store Remake: Faux Concrete Finial

I’ve always had a hard time looking at an object and envisioning what it could be.  It’s something I’m working on; seeing the good bones behind the ugly paint or bad fabric.  Taking an ordinary nothing and turning it into an amazing something.  Thrift stores are a great place to practice stretching those creative muscles.  And that’s exactly where I found the objects for my next project!

I purchased this gold colored decorative finial and two shelves for $12 at a local thrift shop.  (The shelves will be in a future post).  Here’s what I did to remake the decorative finial.

First, I painted the entire finial with Liquitex Gesso.  This primed the surface and helped to cover that gold color.  I let the gesso dry, then painted it with FolkArt Home Decor chalk paint in color “Sheepskin”.  After that was dry, I placed a dollop of the “Sheepskin” paint and a dollop of Craftsmart acrylic paint in color “grey” on my craft mat.  I watered down the paint just a tad and mixed a bit of the two colors together then started dabbing it on with my brush.  At first I wasn’t happy with the effect so I used only the grey paint, dabbing it on in spots where there would be shadows on the piece.  Then I went back and used watered down sheepskin paint over areas that I felt had too much grey.  My intention was to make the finial look like concrete.

And here’s how it turned out!  What do you think?  I really love it, and I’m glad I was able to see past the gold color and find the potential hiding in this piece.  Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you’ll come back to check out the shelves!

Do you have an eye for finding the “good bones” in something that most people wouldn’t look twice at?  I’d love to hear about your experience with finding the hidden potential in an object!

xoxo Vicki

 

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