How To Make a Malachite Chest with Amy Howard at Home®
1. Prep the Chest
Remove hardware, and clean chest with Amy Howard at Home ® Clean Slate™ using a Lint-free T-Shirt Rag. Remove drawers.
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2. Paint the Base Colors and Seal
Mix Amy Howard at Home ® One Step Paint™ Lady Singing the Blues and Black at a 4:1 ratio. *You will want to mix enough of this color to paint the chest as well as the Malachite glazing technique. Paint or spray (with AHAH Hand Held Sprayer) entire chest with two thin coats, allowing 30-45 minutes drying time between coats. Allow to dry 2 hours.
Mix One Step Paint™ in Easy Street, Get in Gear, and Dunavant Green at a 2:2:1 ratio. Paint inset drawer panels with this custom color with two thin coats, allowing 25-30 minutes drying time between coats. Allow to dry 30-45 minutes.
Spray entire chest and drawer fronts with two coats of Amy Howard at Home ® Bright Idea™, allowing to dry 15 minutes between coats. Allow to dry 30 minutes after second coat. Not only will this give the chest a great sheen, it will create the ideal surface for the Malachite glazing technique.
*We made custom colors to suit our need by mixing One Step colors, but you could easily use any colors straight from the can, just be sure to use a light base color with a darker glazing color to achieve the best results for the malachite technique.
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3. Create your Malachite Tool
Using Craft Knife make cuts into the corner edge of your Eraser at a slight angle, and going about ¼” deep (see photo). Go back and cut again at the opposite angle, allowing some cuts to cause bits of the eraser to fall away, creating an irregular comb edge as shown. Cut several tool edges (long sides as well as short sides) on several erasers for variety and a natural, irregular finished look.
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4. Mix Glaze
Mix equal parts Amy Howard at Home ® Glazed Over™, navy blue mix from Step 2, and water.
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5. Malachite Glaze Technique
Using an Amy Howard at Home ® Soft Sable Brush, apply glaze mix over green inset panel of a drawer. Move immediately to next step, not allowing any drying time. You will have 10-25 minutes of “open time” (while the paint is still wet, fluid, and movable), so you will work on one drawer at a time.
Holding your eraser tool firmly between thumb and ring finger or middle finger, and applying pressure to center with index finger (see photo), place cut edge of the eraser tool firmly against an edge of the inset panel and begin pulling across the panel in an organic, random rounded zig-zag motion, with hesitation creating subtle points as opposed to being simply wavy (see photo), working toward one of the other edges of the panel. Wipe your eraser tool off between each pull.
Using a different side of your eraser tool for variety, fill in spaces within the panel, being sure to start and stop your patterns at an edge of the panel or against another pattern line (see photo), and moving in circular patterns, mimicking natural malachite. Take care to make sure every shape is different and random, and alternate eraser tool edges often.
Repeat steps on each drawer panel. Once your desired patterning is complete on each drawer, allow the glaze to dry for 30-45 minutes.
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6. Mix Finishing Glaze
Make a diluted glaze by mixing equal parts glaze mix from Step 6 and water.
Using Soft Sable Brush, apply diluted glaze mix over the entire panel. Move immediately to next step, not allowing any drying time.
Using a Lint-free T-Shirt Rag begin dabbing glaze, picking it up onto your rag, removing it to reveal the desired amount of malachite design. This will tone down the green background and soften the overall design. Continue this until you are satisfied with the look. If you remove too much glaze, simply apply more and repeat the process. Allow to dry 30-45 minutes.
Once dry, using Bright Idea, spray each panel to seal.
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7. Finish
Soak hardware in lacquer thinner or Xyxlene, and scrub with steel wool to clean. Allow to dry completely.
Re-apply hardware to the chest.
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8. Enjoy the Bragging Rights! ™
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Even the roughest pieces of furniture are redeemable with some elbow grease and a good design plan! Restore the elegance to an older piece by using the malachite painting technique. Follow these instructions and you'll be ready to enjoy the bragging rights in no time.
Products: Amy Howard At Home
8 Steps