The Making of a French Wine Barrel Lid

Even though I have about a ba-zillion projects on my to-do list, I literally found myself "bored" the other day as to what to do.

"Oh Please!"

We artist/crafters/junkers know we have no boring days, but I did, I swear!



So there is this Lazy Susan I had that the revolving bottom fell off some time a million years ago.  I decided to do some experimenting with it and thought it actually came out a lot cooler than the plain thing I had originally bought.

It's a round, butcher block design and that's about all I can say about it's "uniqueness".  It was as boring as I felt that day!  I cleaned it up and sanded any surface finish it had on it.  I needed a naked, bland surface to work with, and frankly, it wasn't all that hard with this thing.  It was soooo "80's" looking!

Gag Me!!

So I took out my handy-dandy faux crate making tools:  a ruler and a flat head screwdriver.  I dragged the screwdriver down the lines between each board in order to create the look of crate wood, using the ruler as a guide and to make sure I didn't slip and create an unwanted "line" somewhere.  Didn't make them too deep as I didn't want the wood to end up separating on me, but enough to get a etched line for stain to darken and emphasize.

Next I pulled out some MinWax "Provincial 211" stain.  I didn't want a dark or a light one, but one that looked like the aged darkness of an old French oak wine barrel.  Since the stain was labeled "Provincial", I figured I was headed in the right direction here, LOL!

Remember folks:  

when drinking during your projects, 

please remember to NOT make your drinking cups identical 

to the cup your using to mix a little water with your stain.  

It's not good... trust me on this.

Anyway.......

I applied the wax using the "Brush On - Wipe Off" method until I received the look I wanted.  Some areas were purposely done a little heavier because we know aging does not happen in a uniform manner.  Make sure you get some heavier doses in the the gaps between boards.  Think your kids room when it hasn't been cleaned by them since they gave up legos and Barbie dolls.  It's that kind of old dirty look your after here.

Next I took an image I made on Photoshop (can't live without that program!), and reversed the image.  Print it on regular transfer paper.  

My OCD side of my insisted I take an exacto knife and crop the image.  This was not easy to do after 6 cups of coffee, so I suggest you only have 4 before attempting this.

Next, with a very hot, dry iron - NO STEAM ALLOWED - patiently (I emphasize patiently  here), and slowly ironed the image onto my wood.  Allowed it to almost cool completely before peeling off.  

**Note:  If you find that part of your image hasn't adhered to the wood, press a little more heat onto it until it does.  This takes time because the ink has to be absorbed into the wood, and depending how old/new your wood is will depend on how long it takes for it to happen.

If you STILL have some issues on some areas - which I did - take a fine artist and dab/paint in the areas that didn't adhere with a little bit of acrylic paint.  Since I was going for an image that looked like it was put on in the 1800's, imperfections were not an issue with me.  

I live for imperfections that are suppose to look that way.  It's the only way my OCD and my ADD sides of me can co-exist!

After a little light sanding here and there to further distress the piece, I put on a couple of coats of flat varnish to protect it.

Glued the revolving piece back on the bottom with a little Gorilla Glue, which I have found holds anything together short of a nuclear blast hitting it.

I now had a "Lazy Susan" that had been turned into a piece that look like it came from the top of an old French wine barrel.  In fact, everyone in the house thought I had bought an old wine barrel lid!

I like those days when I'm bored!

Vintage Resurrections

- est, 2011 -