Produce Professional-Looking Pieces with APC

Feel a little nervous at the prospect of refinishing a beloved piece? Or maybe you’ve got grand ideas for a decrepit looking piece, but unsure of how to begin? Then you have to check out this amazing re-furnishing. Candyce Mitchell shows us how she was able to produce a professional-looking piece with the help of APC products. She shares with us the many techniques that she used to make an ordinary shelf into something straight out of a magazine! Although it is evident that she is an experienced painter, we’re sure that with the use of APC products, you can achieve fantastic, professional-looking pieces too!

Fixing up your piece

Candyce procured this cute little shelf from a Facebook marketplace ad for a mere $5. Gotta love FB! She’s not sure how old it is, but was honest in claiming it needed a little love. She replaced the back panels with new plywood, lightly sanded the top and cleaned the rest of the piece with APC’s Surface Prep Cleaner. You might find yourself in need of using new materials to fix your piece, but no need to worry that the continuity of your finished product will be disturbed. After Candyce was finished with her shelf, APC products left it looking as if nothing had been replaced at all! 

Don’t be afraid to mix n’ match colors!

She used several different colors for this project. The interesting thing is that it doesn’t appear that way at first sight! She used Fireworks Red as the main color, but accented it with Cannonball, A-Maize-ing, and Uncle Sam. She exploited the beautiful fact that APC colors can be mixed to produce custom colors and mixed Uncle Sam and A-Maize-ing to produce a vintage-y color as the background of the decoupage napkins. You too, can mix colors to produce a color more to your liking if our 42 colors on hand are not to your liking!

Decoupaging & Adding Texture

After decoupaging the napkins to the top and the back panels, she applied more decoupage glue on top of the napkins for added texture and dimension. Before layering those suckers with Top Coat, she lightly sanded the glue. Note that in this case, Top Coat was not the last APC product to be used. Usually a sealer, Top Coat is used last. However, in this case, it was used as a barrier and to protect the decoupage job. You might find using Top Coat as a barrier useful at times, especially if you want to add glaze, or another color of paint.

One of the coolest techniques Candyce used was creating a border for the decoupaged napkins on the top of the shelf. She taped off the area she wanted first. Having added decoupage glue atop of the napkins, she had that texture already to be painted over. Using a dabbing method, she applied Cannonball paint to the taped off area, ensuring more additional texture for the border.

Add a Little Vintage

Lastly, Candyce finished off the project with Black Glaze and Clear Antiquing Wax. The Black Glaze provided a more vintage appeal while the Antiquing Wax produced a matte finish.  She did a fantastic job, didn’t she?

APC products are a breeze to work with but you get distinctive results with each and every single one.  So get working on your next project with APC! Play around with everything APC has to offer to produce the results that YOU want!