Spring Mini Tutorial

Happy Spring!

How has your week been? Good, I hope. We’ve been busy planting a new row of Florida native shrubs this past week. Florida Privet is especially good for fast growing privacy plantings so I’m excited to get them in and going. They also provide food and nesting/cover for our neighborhood birds so that’s a win too! We love watching them nesting and flitting around our property, it’s just so peaceful.

In honor of Spring I have a fun “glow up” mini tutorial for you!

Or, if you’d purchase this set here’s the link to my Etsy shop: https://jennassweetteastudio.etsy.com/listing/1894765259

Let’s get started!

Here’s the “before” of the little garden tool set that we’ll be making over. I found mine at my local Hobby Lobby.

The red just doesn’t do it for me. With a new paint job and some aging we can make this look so much cuter!

Here are the paints you’ll need, found in the craft paint section at Hobby Lobby. You’ll also need something to squeeze them out on to. I use plastic baggies. Disposable! For paintbrush cleanup all you’ll need is soap and water as we’re using acrylic paint.

Paints: Raw Umber acrylic, Cottage White chalk paint, Silver Anniversary acrylic paint.

You’ll also need a paintbrush. I use cheap craft paintbrush sets for use with acrylics. As you can see mine is pretty thrashed! (Also found at Hobby Lobby)

Ok, here we go!

1. Apply 2-3 three coats of chalk paint to your mini garden tools. This acts as a primer for the metal. The chalk paint dries quickly so focus on getting as smooth of a finish as you can get for each coat. Your mini garden tools should be mostly solid white when you’re done, and no red showing through. Let dry. This is how they should look.

2. Apply the silver paint with your paintbrush. Let each coat dry before the next coat. I used 4-5 coats of silver paint, so be patient with this step! It will look streaky or thin with the white paint still showing through until you have enough coats of the silver. Let final coat dry. I forgot to get a pic of the silver paint after it’s dry but you’ll know its done when your piece looks mostly silver and doesn’t have white showing through your top coats much.

3. Next is aging. This is where the magic happens! Apply a pea sized amount of your raw umber to your pallet/baggie/foam plate.

   Take your finger or brush and get a tiny amount of the paint on it. Smoosh the tiny bit of paint quickly onto the handle or the rake or shovel head, and then use a clean finger rub it around a bit. I like to hit the edges of a piece to create age there specifically, as you can see on my shovel head.

4. Work a small section at a time until you’ve gotten your technique down. Basically you’re applying a thin layer of brown paint to your metal and buffing it in. Your brown paint will settle into crevices and lightly coat edges. Let dry!

   Tip: Leave some of the silver uncovered for some contrast if you like. A fully grubby rake or shovel or hoe will look very old! Mine is somewhere in between… not fully rusted but definitely old!

   Here are some closeups of mine.

And there you have it! You’re done!

I hoped you enjoyed re-doing these cute antique gardening tools in your mini garden/potting bench or fall leaf scene! This technique will work for anything metal that you’d like to refinish. The chalk paint makes a durable base for any acrylic paint finish.

I had promised some pics of my garden as well as the two little beds that I just finished that will be available for purchase, but I had a crazy week and that will unfortunately need to wait until next week’s blog. Thanks for your patience, as always!

Well I hope you enjoyed this diy. If you have questions about anything please feel free to ask in comments, I’m happy to help and I’d love to hear from you!