Dip Dyed Chairs

I love the dip dye paint trend and even used this technique to create some kitchen accessories for my daughter's play kitchen earlier this year. When Land of Nod asked if I would be interested in dip dye painting a few of their chairs, I couldn't say 'Yes' fast enough. 

My first step was to pick out the chairs. They have a great collection, so it was hard to choose a favorite, but I eventually I decided on the Storage Chairs because of the timeless design and, of course, the extra storage underneath. 

The Before

Here are the original chairs. They were pretty cute as-is, and I was a little intimidated to start painting them. 

Step 1: Selecting the Paint

I started by selecting the paints. I read a couple of online dip dye tutorials that recommended using spray paint for this look, but I have never been very successful with spray paint, and I wanted to work inside. Instead, I opted for acrylics from the Martha Stewart craft collection, applied with a sponge brush. For the pink, I mixed Amaranth and Camellia to achieve the desired shade, and the gold is Metallic Yellow Gold. Since I knew I wouldn't complete all 4 chairs within the same day, I placed the paints in plastic containers with lids.

Step 2: Tape the Chairs

I taped off the areas that I did not want to paint using basic masking tape. I used the bottom storage area as a guide to make sure my tape lines were even, but other chair designs might require measuring to ensure a straight 'dipped' line. 

 Step 3: Paint

I briefly considered sanding the chairs, but decided to start and see how well the paint adhered first. The pink paint went on fairly well so I ended up not sanding. The image above shows how the pink chairs looked after the first coat of paint, and I ended up painting 3 coats on these to achieve a consistent coverage. The gold was a slightly different story, and, in the end, I think sanding may have helped. The metallic paint was slightly sheer and I ended up applying 6 coats to get the gilded effect I was hoping for.

Step 4: Add Polka Dots

What's better than dip dyed chairs? Polka dot dip dyed chairs! I decided to add a polka dot pattern to one of the chairs. This one is definitely my favorite, and it was much easier to do than I expected, largely due to the dauber brush shown in the picture above. It makes very perfect circles. I planned on using a ruler to mark where I wanted to paint the dots so that they would be at even intervals, but I quickly scrapped this idea and just started painting. 

The After

Once everything was completely dry I took the chairs outside and sprayed a satin finish sealant on them to help protect the paint (from my children who any day now will be using them in an obstacle course, to build a castle or to tip over and race cars down the legs).

And Finally ...

After days of not letting my kids go anywhere near the chairs, it was finally time to enjoy our new chairs and we celebrated with a little tea party!

Thank you, Land of Nod. We love our new chairs.

Post by Julee : Warm Hot Chocolate

Comments

[Propylene Glycol]

Wow the chairs look so elegant, I liked the polka dots chair, its soo cute. Thanx for sharing this article, I will also paint 1 for me in my room...