Di-stress your life

One of my favorite things to do is distress decorations and furniture - especially pieces that are unique or outdated.  When complete, it looks chic and custom and it’s surprisingly an extremely easy process.  My number one favorite reason that I love distressing is that it doesn't have to be perfect.  The more care-free the effort, the cooler it looks.  You don’t have to worry about brush marks or nicks – because that’s what distressing is all about. 

This isn't one of my cooler distressing crafts, but I have a step by step on how I transformed this glass owl from golden drab to distressed fab.  This is the final distressed Mr. Owl sitting on our side table!

In this case i chose to distress because i happened to like the decoration, but not the original color.  The original gold was too dark yellowish for my taste.  I bought him in the Halloween clearance section at Home Depot for $3 with the intention of transforming him to go with our decor.

I wanted a black and white color scheme with mostly black showing.  In order to do this, first I sprayed the bottom layer white which will end up peeking through at the end.  A Semi-Gloss White Rustoleum spray paint runs for about $3.50 at Home Depot.  I already owned this so it cost me $0.

I let this sit for 24 hours because the bottom layer needs to be completely adhered to the object before the distressing process can begin.  This way the bottom layer will not come off when sanding the top layer during the distressing process.

I did this in the winter so I had to always bring Mr. Owl into the house for the curing of the paint.  Weird things happen to spray paint in extreme cold or extreme heat.  Just don't do it and stick with the recommended curing temperatures on the can.  I prefer spray painting on cardboard for several reasons. 

     1. It is easy to transport (in my case from outside to inside)

     2. Newspaper blows up in the wind and can mess up the paint

     3. Cardboard is one of the easiest free things to find - put those Amazon boxes to good
         use :)

After I was completely confident that the bottom white layer was cured, I sprayed the top layer.  I used a Black Hammered Rustoleum spray paint that usually runs for about $6.  Again, I already owned this so it cost me $0.  I usually would have used regular black instead of Hammered, but I already owned the Hammered, so why not?  Free is great!

This black top coat I allowed to dry for approximately 3-4 hours.  I kept testing the tackiness of the paint.  As soon as it was no longer tacky, I started lightly sanding the top layer with a piece of 220 grit fine sandpaper.  The sandpaper takes off the top black paint on all of the defining edges of the owl which really makes his features stand out.  This is what Mr. Owl looked like after sanding the front half.  And here's the back complete! There are numerous ways to distress items, but for a glass object like Mr. Owl, this was the best way.  Plus he ended up costing me a monstrous $3!  I wish all of our home decor had prices like that :).