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You could leave a piece of painted wood furniture outside for a few seasons, and let the sun and rain do the job for you. But if you just don't have the time for an authentic weathered-paint surface, several web sites in Yahoo!'s Home Decorating category can help. "Crackle finishes used to be something that people tried to get rid of," notes one craft guru, "but now they are very popular." And the technique is easy for novice painters to learn. According to home decor crafts and DIYnet, these are the basic steps for creating a crackled look on wood surfaces:
- Paint the surface completely and allow it to dry. This is the base coat.
- Thin some white glue with a little water and paint the surface with a light coat of the glue mixture.
- While the glue is still slightly wet, carefully brush on a top coat of paint in a color that contrasts with the base coat. Paint lightly and in one direction only. Don't go over the same area twice with your paint brush.
- Let dry and tiny cracks will develop in the top coat. The base coat will show through the cracks.
- Seal the surface with varnish or polyurethane sealant. (You don't want to let that spiffy new finish get old and worn!)
Instead of using glue, you could use a crackle medium available from craft and paint stores. It produces more even and predictable results, but it's a little
more expensive. Craft stores also sell kits that make it easy for beginners to get crackin'. Latex or acrylic paint with a matte or satin finish seems to work best for this project. Wannabe Martha Stewarts might prefer to crackle in seafoam green and robin¿s egg blue. For a more dramatic effect, Darkabode recommends black and silver paints. You can even put a crackle finish on your walls -- the home-decorating channel HGTV will show you how. As with any new craft, it's a good idea to practice first. Try crackle painting on inexpensive items or scrap lumber before refinishing granny's antiques. If you're not confident of your own
painting skills, there's a gaggle of faux-finish painters out there, happy to crackle your furniture and walls for a price.
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