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Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Quick and Easy Way to Distress Edges



I have done craft projects for years. It has been really popular and common to distress the edges of frames and other wood or painted projects to make them look old. I used to pull out my little pieces of sand paper in order to sand the edges but found that I was scuffing the other parts on the painted wood and it was taking forever and the paint would clog up the sand paper causing me to go through lots of paper.


One day I thought that I could use my dremel tool. I pulled out several different types of grinding stones out or sanding wheels only to find that the paint coming off the project gums up onto the stone because of the heat as well. I would have to stop every 30 seconds to pull hardened paint off the tool. It wasn't much faster than the sand paper. I then had a thought about using a little metal bit that was similar to a circular saw with teeth but it was about 1/4 inch in length and when I zipped it along the edges, it took the paint and a little bit of the square edge off the edges and corners making a distressed look within seconds. I can do a full frame in about 1 minute. It is SO worth the price of the bit.


The bit does "bite" a bit so I have to hold onto the dremel with a firm hand and make sure I don't linger in one spot so that the teeth don't bore down into the wood. I would suggest you take a paint stirring stick that has paint on it and use it to practice going down the edges quickly with the bit so you feel confident before starting. I like using in on black projects because if I mess up, I can just use a Sharpie black pen to quickly cover the mark making it look great again. You can see how I did this in the photos to the left. Same frame where I fixed the scratch using a Sharpie Marker.


The frame at the top was purchased at a second hand store for $2. It had a light pine finish. I took off the hinges and screws and lightly sanded it with steel wool and spray painted it black. I cut backs for the spots out of brown cardboard boxes that were going to the recycle bin. I then used the dremel to distress the edges of it.


I also did three frames. Two were raw wood but one was compressed wood. The spray paint doesn't work on that so I used acrylic paint. Once they were dry, I used the dremel to sand the edges and then I used clear spay paint to put a top coat over them all. I finished a stitch my daughter started years ago that says, "Home is a place you grow up wanting to leave and, when you are older, wanting to return." One of the frames will host that needlepoint. You can see the darker shiny frame was spray painted and the other two were acrylic. They look dull until I spray them with the clear top coat.


These projects were supposed to be prizes for my reunion but I didn't have time to finish them for this year. My older princesses said they may want them for their homes so if not, they will then become prizes for next year. I printed out some family black and white photos to finish off the black partition frame. I think all of the four projects came out looking great.

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