Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint

This was my third time playing with this weird but wonderful paint. Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint has only been available in Australia for a few short months but I have to tell you I could not wait to get some in my hot little hands! Watching my American friends playing with this paint made me green with envy I tell you!
So when a MMSMP (Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint) friend and stockist in the UK messaged me to say she’d seen it was now available in Oz I did THE happy dance!
I ordered some sample packets as soon as I could and started playing.
Now this stuff is different to any other paint  have tried. It’s weird stuff, it really is, but in a wonderful, creative, ‘can’t wait to see what I can do with this stuff’ kind of way.

Unlike Chalk Paint, Milk Paint doesn’t necessarily stick to everything you paint it on. You can add a bonding agent which will make it stick to pretty much anything, but in it’s natural state…it’s a bit of a gamble what you will end up with. And I like that…a lot!
By nature I am a perfectionist. I like everything to be ‘just so’. But milk paint doesn’t behave in a perfectionist way…it’s risky, it’s wild and it’s unpredictable. Sometimes you will get just a little chipping here and there, other times it’s colossal. I am told you get to know what will most likely chip lots and what won’t and that helps you determine when to use the bonding agent, but for now I am enjoying just letting it ‘do it’s thing’ and seeing what results I get. It’s kind of a lucky dip. Of course you can eliminate all those factors with the bonding agent but where’s the fun in that?
A quick internet search using the term ‘chippy milk paint’ will show you the many wonderful finishes possible with milk paint but for now I want to share what happened with my own.

Remember this piece I shared on our Facebook page a few weeks ago? Someone had thought it would look amazing with these huge claw feet. I disagreed and the second I saw it I needed to rescue it, just to rid it of those ridiculous feet! I’m not completely against claw feet on the right piece (although I’ll admit I find them more than a bit creepy) but on this piece they were just…..wrong, and certainly not part of the original piece.

So the feet came off and I gave it a good clean down. I also gave the top a bit of a sand as it was quite shiny and dotted with scratches. I decided to give the top a couple of coats of a dark chocolate colour called Curio. I had originally hoped to fully strip and retain the top as I like natural timber tops with painted bottoms, but as luck would have it, the top was actually a timber veneer (which can’t be stripped) so I decided to completely paint the top. Curio is a very rich chocolate brown and I am told it works wonderfully on bare wood as a stain. Can’t wait to try! I did use the bonding agent mixed with the Curio for the top as I didn’t want any chipping thereby revealing the veneer.
For the bottom half I chose an off white with a bit of a light grey undertone called ‘Grainsack”,  a lovely neutral colour than I am certain will be a regular for me.
Milk Paint comes in a powdered form…you just add water, mix and paint. I liked that I could just mix up small amounts.

I did three coast of the Grainsack to achieve full coverage and then waited for it to do it’s chippy thing. It chipped a fair bit of the doors and less on the sides, so I helped it along with some sandpaper to balance it out a bit.
I finished off the piece with two coats of MMSMP Hemp Oil which is the worlds easiest finish. You just wipe it on, leave it for half an hour or so then wipe off the excess. Hemp Oil protects and seals the Milk Paint. You can use it on chopping boards or wooden toys, bowls, leather, anything that is porous really. It’s food grade and perfectly safe. I could also have used MMSMP Wax to seal my project but I wanted to try the hemp oil as it’s so quick…and I wanted to be finished so I could start another! (Such is the nature of furniture painting:). I shall be sure to try out the wax on my next project. I think it’s finished, but I haven’t *quite* decided whether or not to add some MMSMP Antiquing Wax to the detail to emphasise all those curves some more. I’m leaning towards yes, but I may just think on it a bit first. What do you think?

The holes in the back board tell me this was used as a TV unit and I’d think that’s it’s role to play, however the addition of some pretty wicker baskets would both hide the holes and transform it into a ‘something else’ piece.
Here are a few pics of it styled a few different ways. My TV is a 42incher and a little big for this piece, but a 32 incher would most likely suit it just perfectly.
A close up of the rich chocolate ‘Curio’ top.

This piece was beautiful before, but it had some quite large pieces out of it that needed repairing and would have been unsightly left unpainted. Whilst I appreciate it’s ‘natural state’ beauty, I think it looks a lot prettier now and far less heavy with all that dark wood…and those dreadful big feet!!
Till next time,