My middle daughter is a lover of all things kawaii style, she has anime drawings everywhere, she has started collecting Fairy Tail Funko Pop figures, she has squishies and Japanese style teddies on her side of the room.
We were given pine drawers and a wardrobe when we moved in many years ago, there of course is nothing wrong with pine, but it can look quite dark and imposing in a small room, so I decided to give them a makeover.
Again, I'd never intended to turn this into a blog post, there are no before picture - sorry. I also should have used chalk paint or fusion mineral paint for good coverage but I used what I had indoors.
The drawers had 3 coats of normal white matt emulsion first, a couple of days before I painted the blossom on. I grabbed whatever paints I could find in my cupboard as I needed brown and red.
I thought I had grabbed acrylics but it turned out that I'd got the oil paints - ooops! Too late I had already started, using a cheap paint brush, the thin type that you get in a kid's pack of water colours, I started painting on the branches. Oil paint is a bugger as it doesn't spread that easily but I knew most of it would end up being covered so I wasn't too worried.
I then used the crimson colour oil paint (as mentioned I still thought I was using acrylic) and mixed it with some white emulsion. Being oil, it really didn't mix well and came out quite claggy. This actually worked in my favour - it made the brush go quite stiff and when I dabbed the colour on it came out as a kind of flower, star shape. Perfect.
In the words of the late Bob Ross: “We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents.”
Joy! I then found a bottle of red poster paint, this mixed beautifully with the white emulsion to make a hot pink. I used the same brush and just dabbed different shades of pink and white on top of the crimson colour, the colours all blended together really nicely.
Seeing as I was a bit of a d-bag and used oil paint, it has taken about 3 days to dry properly.
The knobs are from eBay, they are Moroccan brass ones at the bottom, and then ceramic ones called Carnival Rays and Turquoise Aztec.
I hadn't told anyone I was going to do this - so it was a big surprise when they got home, Shannon was thrilled.
I completed the cherry blossom design in one afternoon. The chest of drawers should really be sealed with wax or a coat of varnish (which I have yet to do) but I am really happy with the end result which cost me a total of around £15 and that was for all of the drawer knobs (there are 8).
I now have the pine wardrobe looking very out of place and I have another oriental inspired idea which I hope to try out soon.
