Beautiful and easy dot inspired makeover

Moving house can be exciting and stressful in equal measure. For some of us, it means moving into the house of our dreams where every room matches our tastes. For some of us, we know our home is going to be a work in progress and there are many projects that are on our 'to-do' list. 

One of the best parts of moving home is inheriting items that you wouldn't have thought of buying before but there are also items that needs a bit of TLC.  Our most recent project was one of these items. One of our friends was discussing her new home the other day and mentioning how they didn't have the cash to update the dated decor. One of her solutions for now was to check out the sales and buy new accessories - much needed towels, toothbrush holders and mats.  When we saw this cute little shelf that she wanted to throw out, we had to step in and rescue it. When we saw it we thought it would be the perfect project for a dotty design - something a bit different from what we've created before. As we have recently celebrated International Dot Day and have seen how versatile the humble dot is we thought we would use them here.
Here we've put together a quick guide to how we transformed it.  

You will need:

Small storage item of your choice
Folk It Starter kit Dotting tool
Heart template from our Series 1 Starter kit
Folk It No 3 Round brush (from our Starter kit)
DecoArt Chalky Finish paint - we used Relic and Treasure
to co-ordinate with accessories.
DecoArt Americana Acrylics - we used Baby Blue, Warm White and Lamp Black from the Starter Kit.
Roller brush
Flat brush for painting the corners
Fine sandpaper
Vaseline for distressing (optional) 

The original shelf - complete with dated decoration

We have said it before but the beauty of DecoArt's Chalky Finish paint is that you do not need to sand or prep your project before you begin. As the shelf had been sat in an empty house for a while, we did give it a wipe down with a damp cloth to remove dust and grime. Once it dries, if you would like to distress your shelf, add a layer of vaseline to areas where you don't want the paint to stick. We began painting the shelf with the Chalky Finish paint in Relic, using an old flat brush to reach the awkward corners on the inside. Allow to dry.

Paint a second coat and allow it to dry, if you have applied Vaseline, using a dry cloth, now rub the areas where you have applied it to remove the paint.  Next, we transferred the template onto the shelf by placing the template in the area we wanted the design, placing the transfer paper chalk side down underneath the pattern and tracing over it with the small end of our dotting tool. We chose to add a heart on the top and sides of the shelf.

Next, using the old flat brush, we added one coat of Americana Decor Chalky Finish in Treasure to the edges of the shelf. Once it had dried, using the sandpaper from our Starter Kit, we rubbed areas of the shelf (including the small handle at the bottom) to allow the Relic grey through. (Again, if you used Vaseline on these areas, you would simply rub off the paint instead with a dry cloth). In some areas, we kept sanding to reveal small patches of the original colour through too.

The new shelf is now ready to decorate :)

Now comes the fun part! Using our template as a guide and working our way inwards from the edge we started dotting. We mixed our dark blue with baby blue and black and started with that but as we worked around the heart we kept adding white to lighten the colour. This meant that it created a lovely Ombre effect on the design with the lightest dots being in the middle.  To fill the heart we used a mixture of small and large dots using the tool. Once we had completed the hearts on the top of the project, we used exactly the same process for the hearts on the side.

Filling in the heart was rather therapeutic and we were pleased with the overall effect. 

To finish the project, we added small comma strokes below the hearts to add a bit more detail but these are optional. You could add whatever extra details you wish. As we are always telling our Folkers to remember the little details, we painted a small heart on the little handle at the bottom and added dots around it.

Adding detail to the completed hearts

Finally, the little shelf was unrecognisable and the Relic and Treasure really compliment each other. Thankfully, our friend is over the moon with it and is so happy she didn't throw it away.  The great thing about this project is that anyone can do it whether they Folk It or not. All you need is a bit of paint, patience and a dotting tool.

Our completed shelf.