Mermaid Dresser (Before & After)

When I was little we had a pool and I used to spend hours swimming.  I’d dive into the cool water and touch the bottom of the deep end and swim all the way to the other end of the pool.  I’d pull my legs together in the water and pretend I was a little mermaid.

Even in the ocean, now, I love to look up at the sky and float next to my little boys and think how wonderful it would be to be a mermaid.  To spend all day in the tranquil waters of the sea, lazily splashing in the tide sounds perfect to me.

For the Duxbury Show, I really wanted to create a mermaid piece similar to Conor’s sailor dresser.  You may remember that one here:

I found this beautiful vintage image of a mermaid on the Graphic’s Fairy and knew it would be beautiful on this petite dresser. I don’t actually have a “before” picture of this one.  I decided to strip it because there was layers and layers of paint.  I did a video of the stripping so hope to post that soon.  Here’s the dresser in progress on the deck:

Under all that paint was beautiful oak.  After stripping, I washed the piece down and sealed with two coats of clear shellac to prevent bleed through.  Then I applied two coats of Antoinette Chalk Paint®  This is a really beautiful antique pink by Annie Sloan.

Then I cut out my mermaid image and decoupaged it to the front of the drawers with Annie Sloan Decoupage that my friend Nancy down at the Sea Rose Cottage sent me.  I love working with this stuff!  So easy to apply –

You paint the decoupage medium onto the drawers and then line up your image, pressing bubbles out.  Then I applied three layers of the decoupage medium, allowing to try in between coats.

The next step was to paint the mermaid.  I watered down the chalk paint. I used Old Ochre for her skin, French Linen for her hair and the baby seal and Florence and Versailles for her tail. It is best to have the drawers out of the dresser for this, and apply the paint to a flat surface.

Once that was dry, I applied Annie Sloan’s two step Craqueleur.  It gave a pretty egg shell crackle all over the dresser, giving a beautiful antique and aged effect. Here you can see applying the dark wax (I mixed dark and clear wax together).  See how it brings out the cracks:

Here is a close up of the crackle on the side:

The top was left natural and I love how you can see bits of the paint and wood.  I sealed with a few coats of hemp oil.

Look how pretty the crackle looks on the mermaid’s skin:

The glass knobs pick up the sun like sea glass does on the beach:

This Little Mermaid didn’t last long at the show.  A teacher bought her for her bathroom.

 I really love the idea of mermaids and hope somewhere under the sea they exist.

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