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