How to Crackle!

I’m pretty sure everyone has seen the ever popular crackle finish on furniture, walls, flower pots, picture frames, etc.  at some point in time. Per customer request, here at Furniture From The Barn, we attempted our first piece of furniture with a crackle. Let me tell you, it was not that easy. It took a couple of tries to get it right and we are leery of doing so again as it was time consuming and maybe a tad frustrating, but we don’t need to talk about that! However, with practice comes perfection (or atleast that’s what I’ve always heard) so maybe if we give it a go a few more times we’ll get the hang of it…

I want to share our first crackling experience with you all. Perhaps you will learn a few things, or maybe you have done this in the past and can provide some words of wisdom.

Here is a list of materials you will need:

1.       two paint colors (Mustard Yellow & Black realmilkpaint.com)

2.       crackle medium “natural crackle” (realmilkpaint.com)

3.       paintbrushes

4.       drop cloths

5.       masking tape

Our customer wanted her cabinet painted first with Mustard Yellow milk paint and then painted black allowing the black paint to crackle and show the yellow through the cracks.

Our first step was to prepare the wood to be finished. We filled all nails holes and sanded the piece.

Once the wood was prepped we were able to start painting. We used Mustard Yellow Milk Paint (see previous milk paint blog for instructions on how to properly paint using milk paint.) We gave the cabinet two coats of yellow as you really want the paint to be opaque so when the top coat crackles the under coat is bright and shows through beautifully.

Next, pour some "Natural Crackle" into a container and add water until you reach a consistency that can be brushed or rolled. Tip: the thicker the "Natural Crackle", the larger the cracks. The thinner the mixture is the smaller the cracks. You can adjust the mixture to achieve the crackle paint results you are looking for. Brush the "Natural Crackle" over the dry milk paint. Allow "Natural Crackle" to dry (30 minutes to 2 hr.) If you want more or better crackling in your crackle paint, apply a second coat of Natural Crackle over the previous dry coat. Allow to dry. You can wait as long as you want for the crackle paint to dry. There is no real window - 2 hours or 2 weeks - it does not matter (realmilkpaint.com)

Once you’ve painted the piece with your crackle paint medium and allowed it to dry, you are now able to paint the top coat. Our customer chose black milk paint. We did a lot of experiments in regards to timing and how long to allow the crackle paint to dry before adding the black paint. We decided that waiting about an hour and a half was our best outcome.

Now that the black milk paint has dried, you can seal your piece of furniture with Tung Oil. It’s best to use an oil based sealer as opposed to water based. The Crackle paint and Milk Paint are water based so a water based sealer will ruin your work.

I wouldn’t say we were overly thrilled about the outcome of this project… We definitely want to try it a few more times. We will post pictures of the finished piece soon!

We would love to hear about all of your experiences with crackle paint DIYs. Looking forward to your comments!