Introducing Outback Petticoat

Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint is one of my favourite furniture paints to use, and I was so excited when Marian Parsons (aka Miss Mustard Seed) announced a new colour for her line – Outback Petticoat – based on our Aussie outback!

A Pretty Name for a Pretty Colour

Named for the hems on the petticoats of early settlers who lived in the outback towns of Australia, where the soil is a rich burnt orange or ochre colour.

A Tallboy Dresser

When I began work on this tall boy (which also has a mirror & tiny drawer piece that sits on top), …

… I envisaged the outback ochre coloured soil against the burned out trees or grass from the outback bushfires, creating a black ash similar to the trees in the picture below. I knew I wanted to paint this new Outback Petticoat colour over a layer of MMSMP Typewriter, to represent this image I had in my mind.

[Source: Internet] I tried to find a picture that would capture what I imagined with burnt grass and outback soil.

Creating my Outback Vision

Here, I’ve completed the first coat – Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint colour, Typewriter. In this pic it looks charcoal grey, but with a top coat it would look darker. This is going to be my “burnt outback” background for my Outback Petticoat ochre colour.Mixing the Outback Petticoat colour – MMSMP comes in powder form, mixed to a ratio of 1 part powder to 1 part water to create the paint.
All mixed up and ready to paint!

Layering Technique for Aged Finish

For this project, I’m using a method of layering paint using a resist. I’ve gone in depth in this method in a video tutorial here.

To do this, I have my top layer of paint ready to go, but before I paint it on, I use Hemp Oil as a resist between the two layers to create a two toned aged layered effect. So I have my MMSMP Hemp Oil in a dish ready to paint on. I lay the hemp oil on with a brush, not too thick, but enough to create a resisting surface for the top coat to go on. Then I paint my top coat of Outback Petticoat over the hemp oil. It can look a bit ugly and scary when it’s going on …Here, I thought I’d show you the Outback Petticoat on this raw timber – it will have a lighter colour over a lighter surface. Here’s where the magic happens, and the top coat of paint will start to flake and chip in areas. Last thing to complete the project is the top coat. See on the left of pic below, is the unfinished Outback Petticoat in it’s porous state. On the right, I’ve begun topcoating with Hemp Oil to give it a lovely matte finish when it dries.