Upcycling Top Tips

We all love a short cut and through my years of upcycling furniture I have accumulated quite a few hacks!! 

Here are 6 top tips to help you with your upcycling transformations.

If your anything like me I hate cleaning out the painting tray and brushes after a good painting session, then cling film will be your best friend. 

Line your painting tray with a good couple of layers of cling film, then use as normal. Once finished just place another layer of cling film on top and it is then ready for your next painting session. 

Also if you don't have time to clean your brush you can always wrap cling film around the brush area to prevent it from drying out too much. I would however recommend cleaning your paint brush after every use as it will prolong the brush life and bristles.

If however you have found that you have left your paint brush to dry out (we've all done it) Cornish Milk Mineral Paint have got an amazing product called Biostrip, it will restore your paint brush to it's forma glory!!

Just simply rub the Biostrip formula into your dried brush and leave for around an hour in a warm room. After an hour, rinse your brush in warm water and the Biostrip formula will have removed all the old paint and even soften up the bristles, making your paint brush feel like brand new again.

You have to invest in a Furniture Skate Dolly!!! This trolley will make your life so much easier and will also really help your back. Obviously great at moving heavy furniture around and helping prevent your floor from being scratched. BUT this dolly will really help move your piece of furniture when you are painting, instead of you moving around the furniture, you can swivel the furniture around you!

I find keeping the floors paint free a real bind and a chore and sometimes I think I can get away without anything 'if i'm careful' and then regret that decision immediately. There are a few ways of keeping paint off your floor and here's some choices, all good in different ways:

• Dust Sheets - great for using for a quick small project but be careful as you can easily trip over the edges
• Card board boxes - lay a load of cardboard boxes on your floor and pop your furniture on top. Cardboard is great to use on hard flooring as helps protect your knees from the hard floor which can start to hurt the knees after a while, but the boxes can move around which does start to become annoying.
• Hard or Soft Floor Protector is my go too and I find the best way of preventing paint and marks on your floor.. You can use on carpet or hard floor surfaces (comes as two separate products) sticks to the floor and is easily removed.

A good paint brush will make your painting experience a lot more enjoyable but most importantly will dramatically reduce the amount of brush stroke marks. There are many different size and shaped brushes available, I personally love to use the round synthetic brushes that are great for flat surfaces but also perfect for getting into hard to reach corners and fiddly bits. I also have to hand a small artist brush for the really intricate areas like hinges where you really have to be careful.

To get that ultra smooth finish the best tip I can give you is use a roller!!

Ideal to use on flat surfaces and gives you a lovely smooth finish, when using a roller make sure you are not pushing to hard on the surface and not to overwork the paint. I prefer to use a foam roller as I find this gives a nicer finish.

When your done painting, use a straight edge tool - like a putty knife or even a ruler - to scrape the excess paint off your roller and back in to the paint tub. The less paint on the roller, the faster and easier it will be to clean.

When it comes to cleaning another little tip is to use fabric softer in with your water as this lowers the surface tension making the water "wetter". Let the roller soak for a while and the fabric softener will do its thing. Then, rinse.

I hope these hacks and tips help make your upcycling projects easier and more enjoyable, keep being creative and just go for it!!