milk paint

Milk paint is a color wash made with, well, milk. It's often used to give vintage (or wanna-be vintage) furniture an antique or shabby-chic look. There's a soft, translucent sheen, and you can make it in any color you can imagine. It's totally organic, too, so it's a great way to go green! Stacy tried it on a simple board just to see what it was like. She thinks perhaps she didn't drain her curds enough, which made the paint a little runny. But it was a fun experiment! Check out the tutorial from MarthaStewart.com.

This is what the milk looks like when it is separated into curds and whey before you strain them (looks like what I found in a sippy cup today after it fell behind the couch last week!).

This is how it looks when you add the pigment to it. Add as much or as little as you like until you get the desired hue.

Paint your item within a few hours before it spoils (wait, isn't it already spoiled?). Don't worry, the smell will disappear once the paint dries.

Stacy applied vinyl lettering to the board once the paint was dry. So pretty!

Try a milk paint wash on a cheap thrift-store piece to liven up a room, or on a smaller item like this board for a sweet, soft look.