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Rustic Red, White, & Blue Chalk Painted Book Crate {& 110 Red, White, and Blue Ideas!}

Here is a simple crate that I painted with chalk paint to create a red, white and blue rustic aesthetic!

Three Cheers For The Red, White, and Blue poster.

Today I have joined a group of 109 other bloggers for the Ultimate Red, White, and Blue project hop! Even though I am not American I still love a good red, white, and blue project – and the colours of our boys’ bedroom are red, white, and blue (with a little yellow thrown in for good measure!). So I decided to add some life to a plain ol’wooden crate with a little red, white, & blue chalk paint and then gave it an aged finished with some dark (antiquing wax). It is the perfect spot to store overflow big books (of which we seem to have so many….).

Red White & Blue Chalk Painted Book Storage Crate with books inside it.

I started with this basic wooden crate from Walmart (cost under $9)…

A simple wooden crate.

First I painted it all over with Country Chic Chalk based paint in Devotion. It is the same colour that I used for the Icelandic flag on their Flag Dresser.

Painting the crate a reddish colour.

Once that was dry I dry brushed over it with Midnight Sky which is a beautiful blue grey shade (also the same blue color that I used in their Flag dresser and on the Numbered Distressed Nautical dresser that I recently shared.

Dry brushing blue onto the red.

To “dry brush” just remove most of the paint from your brush, first on the can and then by brushing it off on a scrap piece of paper or cloth. Then paint the piece like normal…. you will find you get a nice distressed looking finish and it hardly uses any paint. The benefit to doing this with the Country Chic paint is that when you get a little too heavy in places it is super easy to distress it and remove some paint with a damp rag.

Adding a little white paint to the crate.

Distressing the painted crate.

Once it was all dry I decided to give it more of a rustic aged finish by using some antiquing wax. This is almost like wax that has stain right in it, and it definitely adds years to your piece. If you go to heavy with the wax, you can always add a little clear wax back on and then buff it all off – it will take off the excess antiquing wax with it.

A brush and clear wax on the crate.

Here you can see the difference that adding/using the dark or antiquing wax makes.

Showing the difference between the wax and no wax on the crate.

Lastly, I buffed all my wax off with a dry lint free cloth until the crate was smooth and dry feeling to the touch. Done!!

 

The finished distressed crate on the floor.

Up close picture of the distressed crate.

Does that look like an old rugged crate, or what? I love the character it adds to my boys’ book storage area in their bedroom.

Like it? Want to try this technique?

Pin it to remember it! 

The rustic crate with books inside it.

 

Now, are you ready for some more Red, White, and Blue inspiration?!? I know I am ….

 

Thanks for reading. And remember my housie friends, HOME isn’t built in a day. Enjoy the journey!

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Disclosure: I am a member of the 2014 Country Chic Paint Blogger Squad and receive paint in exchange for sharing my tutorials and projects. All opinions are 100% my own.

 

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5 Comments

  1. Yes, it sure looks like a rugged crate, with lots of character! 🙂 perfect place to store books! If you’d like, I’d love for you to share any of your awesome DIY at our new link party… on my blog 🙂 Have a great day, Krista!

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