I have a confession. I am a terrible procrastinator. Or rather, I’m a fantastic procrastinator and that often puts me in a terrible situation. I used to think I was just a slow painter. It is true I paint to really enjoy the process and don’t rush through it. But… somewhat recently I realized it’s not that I am a slow painter. I’m just a procrastinator.

So here’s how I fix that. It’s not enough for me to set artificial time goals for myself (ie I’ll get this table done this week because I scribbled it on the to-do list). I need hard, extrinsic, someone else set the time line motivation. I need accountability.

So when I was asked to collaborate on a blog post with Jane of Morning Dew Creations I jumped on it. This is the accountability I needed. There was a hard deadline, requirements Jane asked me to meet and a responsibility to someone other than myself. If I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain, I’d be letting Jane down and messing up the publication of her blog post. So although I still did procrastinate and that stool sat there in my workshop staring at me for about a week asking “what are you waiting for?”, I am happy to say I did, in fact, finish it on time.

The stool was a Facebook Marketplace purchase. It looks hand made, maybe someone’s wood shop project. I love the size of it as it’s quite large. Not to mention I have a thing for stools, benches, small tables.

The first thing I did after cleaning it was to give it a quick coat of Debi’s Design Diary DIY Paint Summer Crush. I let that dry then gave it a coat of Kissing Booth which is quite possibly one of my favorite DIY Paint colors. I knew I was painting with multiple layers and I was giving it a distress so I didn’t need to get full coverage with any of my colors.

After allowing the Kissing Booth to dry I used a wood block tool to apply the color Monet’s Garden which is a beautiful green. The purpose of the wood block is to give me an uneven paint application creating a somewhat “chippy paint” appearance. It also creates some texture. I purchased mine at Joann Fabrics several years ago but this is the same one.

Once dry, I gave my stool a distressing using wet distress technique. That is nothing more than rubbing with a damp lint free cloth to expose the layers of paint.

After giving the top of the stool a quick coat of DIY Paint Big Top and letting it dry THOROUGHLY (as in at the very least several hours and at best overnight), I applied part of the Wander furniture transfer from Iron Orchid Designs. It is easy to cut the transfers to any size you need with a pair of scissors making sure you leave the backing on the transfer while you cut it.

I decided to give my stool a little extra something because that’s the way I operate. I chose to use a couple pieces from the Bohemia stamp also from Iron Orchid Designs. I used Stayz-On ink in black because that’s what I had in my stash. IOD has an ink in their product line and you could also use paint. I find though that for small, detailed stamps ink works better for giving a clearer impression.

Finally, I gave the entire stool including the underside which I decided to leave Kissing Booth a coat of DIY Paint Big Top.

To see what Jane from Morning Dew Creations did with her stool you can visit her blog post here.

For a full video tutorial for my stool makeover, please visit my YouTube channel here and subscribe for more!