Furniture Upcycling with Glass Plaster in 4 Easy Steps!

Get ready to transform a tired old table into a stunning example of furniture upcycling! In this tutorial, we’ll be taking you through the step-by-step process of giving an old table a fresh new look using a combination of Posh Chalk and WoodUbend products. From applying Posh Chalk Crackling Gel to creating a unique glass plaster design and adding a WoodUbend trim, we’ll show you how to achieve a beautiful, vintage and inspired finish.

Step One: Paint & Pigments

To start off our brand-new furniture upcycling project, we first applied a base coat of London Fume by Magic Paint to the entire table. As there were some glossy tiles on the top surface of our table we sanded this down before applying our paint to ensure it would effectively stick to the surface. After applying this first coat there was still some of the tile design showing through, so we force dried it and used a Posh Chalk Small Smooth & Blend Brush to apply a second coat creating a much smoother surface.

Now that we were happy with this base coat, we gently sanded the top surface once more before moving on to mixing our pigments. We sanded the surface to ensure that when we adhered our stencil later we didn’t risk any bleeding. We decanted a couple of scoops of the Posh Chalk Iron Black Pigment onto a WoodUbend board and gradually added Posh Chalk Pigment Infusor until we had created a thick paste-like consistency. Again using one of our Posh Chalk Small Smooth & Blend Brushes, we covered the entire top surface of our table with our freshly made pigment mixture.

Step Two: Glass Plaster Stencilling

Next, it was time to use our new Posh Chalk Glass Plaster, Premium Stencils & Colour Kicks marbling technique in order to create a centrepiece for this furniture upcycling project. The first step was to tape off the edges of our table top to prevent the Glass Plaster we would soon apply from spreading outside of the area we wanted it to sit within. Then we adhered our Posh Chalk Solly’s Lace Stencil to our surface, smoothing it down to ensure it was completely flush with the tabletop.

Using a Posh Chalk Premium Finishing Trowel, we spread our Posh Chalk Glass Plaster until there was a consistent amount across the entirety of our designated area. The Posh Chalk Finishing Trowels are perfect for this as you simply tilt them at a 45 degree angle and scrape across your surface. This is a convenient and effective way to spread your Glass Plaster across the whole stencil without causing clumps to build up in random areas.

Once satisfied with the amount of Glass Plaster we had applied, we placed a few drops of our Posh Chalk Ebony Noir Colour Kick at random intervals across our stencil. We then, again using one of our Posh Chalk Premium Finishing Trowels, spread these drops of concentrated colour across our stencil design. This causes some of the Colour Kick and Glass Plaster to build up on the edge of our trowel, which would then be spread across the surface by the next trowel stroke. We would periodically wipe off the excess from the surface of our trowel to avoid causing imperfections in the finish.

Once we were satisfied with the amount of Ebony Noir Colour Kick that had been spread across the surface, we placed a few drops of the Posh Chalk Arctic White Colour Kick on our surface. We then repeated the same process of spreading this with our trowel. Now it was time to peel off our stencil and admire the effect we had created. The random element of where we had placed our drops of Colour Kicks as well as the subtle blending that occurred when we were spreading it across our stencil helped to create a beautiful and truly unique design that reminded us of a glossy marble.

As our Glass Plaster dries completely transparent when uncoloured, this technique allows you to create designs that not only utilises the colours you select but also the colours present on the rest of your project. This, as well as the random element that we mentioned earlier, combines to create an effect that looks like a glass marble. We then peeled the tape off from around the edges of our design and wiped away any excess Glass Plaster and Colour Kick that had leaked out of our designated area. Finally we force-dried our design with a heat gun; this started to create cracks helping add to the subtle vintage effect we wanted for this furniture upcycling project.

Step Three: Crackling Gel & Trim

Continuing to add to our vintage effect, we applied a layer of Posh Chalk Crackling Gel to the sides of our table using a Posh Chalk Small Smooth & Blend Brush. We covered the entire underside of our table including the inside surfaces to keep our piece consistent. As we allowed this to dry naturally for the best effect later on, we mixed some more of our Iron Black Pigment with Pigment Infusor in order to pre paint a WoodUbend trim. The trim we had selected for this furniture upcycling project was TR46 and we intended to use it to create a border around the design on our tabletop.

The most effective way to pre paint a WoodUbend trim is by warming it up then uncurling small sections one at a time to paint. Once the first small section was painted to our satisfaction, we warmed our trim again in order to dry the section we had just painted and make the trim malleable enough to curl that section into a new roll as well as uncurl another small section to be painted. This was slowly repeated until we had a rolled trim fully covered in our Iron Black Pigments.

We then cut off sections of our trim to form the four sides of our border; as we wanted to create 90 degree corners we left some excess to allow us to mitre when we attached them. We attached one section of trim at a time, heating each thoroughly before applying WoodUbend WoodUglue to their entire footprint then pressing them down into position firmly. Once all four were in place we heated them once more in situ and pressed down firmly in the centre of each section.

Next it was time to mitre our corners. We cut diagonally where the sections of our trim overlapped and applied more WoodUglue under the edges and where the trims connect, creating perfect mitred corners. We then also applied our Iron Black pigment mixture to the outside edge of our table to tie the piece together.

Step 4: Crackling Enamel & Wax

Now we were entering the final stage of this furniture upcycling process, it was time to apply Posh Chalk Crackling Enamel on top of the now dry layer of Crackling Gel we had applied to the sides and legs of our table. We covered the legs of our table with a thick coat of Crackling Enamel, again using a Posh Chalk Small Smooth & Blend Brush. We then force-dried this with a heat gun, causing the cracks to form before our eyes!

Once fully satisfied with the cracks we had created, we began applying Magic Paint’s Sweet Milk White Solid Wax using a Posh Chalk Wax Extender Brush. This was done with firm brush strokes in order to push white wax into our cracks making them really stand out. After this had been done to all sides of the table’s legs, we used a baby wipe and a cloth to wipe away the excess wax that had built up on our surface. This left us with a subtle layer of wax, primarily built up in our cracks to make them pop against the greyish blue colour of London Fume.

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