How To Faux Distress With Plaid Layering Block

I'm so excited to share with you an awesome painting tool I recently picked up at my local craft store. It's so easy to use and it produces an excellent result. I'm not being paid, I just wanted to share! Are you someone who likes that shabby chic look when it comes to furniture? If you don't buy it that way you have to paint and distress the surface yourself. I'm here to tell you that there's an easier way to get the look you want. 

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Many people love their furniture with an age-old, time-worn look about it, and I've definitely been known to do some distressing of my own. Seeing as I love all things vintage, I'm a real pushover for anything having a good distressed look about it. That's why I was so happy to have found this.     

It's a simple wooden tool called the Folkart Home Decor Layering Block, from Plaid. The idea is to paint the block, then drag it along your corners and edges to make the piece look like its undergone some natural aging, or wear and tear. Easy peasy. Really.

Here's an up close and personal shot of one of my recently painted shelves. The paint had a great texture, almost like chalk paint. So I expected it to distress very easily. Unfortunately, the paint UNDERNEATH my chalk paint was not very distress-able so I ended up with a streaky mess, rather than the shabby chic distressable finish I was going for. Enter the layering block.

Here's the block all slathered up with paint. I just poured some of my FolkArt acrylic black paint onto a paper plate, and used a sponge brush to apply the paint to the block.

Here's what the block looked like after I gave the shelf a good going-over on the edges and corners. It easily washes off with soap and warm water. 

And here's the perfectly "distressed" shelf  after I was finished using the block. You can't even tell that it's not "distressed!" I should mention here that they call it a "layering" block because the idea is that you can paint the piece one color, let it dry, distress with another color and repeat (with even more colors) until you've achieved the desired time-worn finish. For this small project I didn't even need to do all that. I was extremely pleased with the black paint from the block being added to my white shelf. So simple to do, but with a great impact.     

I had great fun setting up some vignettes for this shoot, to show you just how fabulous the distressed finish comes across.

 

From fall-themed, 

to silver display shelf,

to Thanksgiving,

to Christmas!

I know, we bloggers have to start in on Christmas way too soon! But when in Rome.... Here you can see one of my precious glass cloche Christmas ornaments I picked up on clearance last year. I know they'll be front and center this year as part of my Christmas decor. Just you wait!

So what do you think? I was pretty impressed with it to say the least. It's an inexpensive, non-messy (no dust!) way to "distress." And I know I'll be using it a lot more in my upcoming painting  adventures.

I had so much fun with this that I've even considered making a video tutorial showing you just how it's done. Would you all be interested? Just let me know!

I hope you enjoyed reading

 How To Faux Distress 
With Plaid Layering Block. 

Thanks for spending time with me today!

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