Pressed Tin with an Old World Feel

Painting pressed tin panels seemed like a daunting task, but a challenge I was up for, when asked by friends and owners of Unveiling Poppy if I could paint the front counters of their newly opened shop in Daisy Hill, QLD. Amy Gurling has been a florist, specialising in weddings, for a number of years, and her husband Gene – a bit of a handyman – built most of their shop fit-out himself. In fact, Gene has been building beautiful custom wedding bouquet boxes for a number of years, and using Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint colour Ironstone, to paint them white. Both he and Amy love using and featuring all natural, eco-friendly products in their business.

Unveiling Poppy boxes

Unveiling Poppy’s custom made boxes painted with MMSMP in Ironstone.

Pressed Tin

If you follow my Instagram account @irestorestuff you’ll see a lot of “in the moment” behind the scenes of what I get up to on a daily basis. You may have seen my posts last month when I painted their pressed tin panels. It was lots of fun, and although I’d seen this look before, this was a ‘new to me’ technique or surface to paint on, and so I was kind of experimenting along the way.

Thankfully, Gene had a spare panel section for me to “play” with and experiment on when I arrived.

Where Did You Get the Pressed Tin from?

The tin panels were purchased from Pressed Tin Panels in Bathurst. I was asked a lot about where the panels came from when I first posted about this project on Instagram. They have some lovely patterns/designs.

Here are the unpainted pressed tin front counter benches that I began with:Pressed Tin panels

The Painting Process:

I took a few video snippets of the process as I went along and pieced them together for you here on my Youtube channel (psst – I’d love you to subscribe).

I experimented a little first on the scrap panel of tin shown here:pressed tin

Here’s the video and I’ll follow with my step by step process below that.

Overview

In case you missed all the steps in the video above, here’s a brief overview of how I completed this aged and chippy look:

  1. Mix a dark coloured base of MMSMP & paint on pressed tin. I used a combo of Curio, Typewriter & Schloss. You may want to scuff sand the tin first, but as I said in the video, I tested this particular tin, which held the paint very well without any hint of chipping – so I skipped the sanding.
  2. Apply Miss Mustard Seed’s Furniture Wax randomly over base coat (mostly the high points of tin – I followed the raised lines)
  3. Mix a white colour of MMSMP & paint over entire surface, working in sections. I used the colour, Ironstone.
  4. While paint is still drying, gently remove paint with a rag along the waxed areas (dab or gently rub). If dried, use fine grit sandpaper (eg. 400+).
  5. Allow to completely dry before sealing with MMSMP Tough Coat. I would wait about 12-24 hours.
pressed tin with milk paint

I worked in sections when adding the wax and top coat of Ironstone.

Finished Look

Photos by @ellelove:pressed tin milk paint

Pressed tin counters at Unveiling Poppy Florist

Do you like this effect on pressed tin? Where else could you imagine seeing this old world look?

Drop your thoughts in the comments below – I’d love to hear from you.

Happy Painting,

Sharon.

PS: Don’t forget to subscribe to my Youtube Channel and hit the little “bell” if you want to be notified when a new tutorial video is uploaded.

PPS: Here’s a PIN to pin to your Pinterest board … I’d love you to share it.

Pressed Tin

I linked up this post to Finding Silver Pennies Sunday Link Party: