I debated whether or not to show you this project gone wrong. But when I did some online research, I found a few others bloggers [reference links at the bottom of this post] who’ve had similar results. So, I decided it was worth sharing how this fabric medium works …or in my case, didn’t work. If you plan on painting velvet, I hope you read this first!
These two french chairs have been sitting in my inventory for over a year. I pulled them out last Thursday because inspiration had struck to paint something for my own home. I was looking forward to painting the velvet fabric [as I’ve seen others successfully do on Pinterest] while leaving the original wood to create a french country farmhouse feel.
I was optimistic because I’ve had amazing results with my other fabric projects. Here is my first fabric painted chair. It still looks great, feels good, and everyone who comes over is shocked when I tell them it’s painted – not reupholstered! I’ve even had a couple of clients offer to “take it off my hands”, only to be disappointed when I tell them it’s not for sale.
Also, if you joined me last week, you saw some pretty impressive results on dyeing fabric with chalk style paint. You can see how I dyed fabric into authentic looking linen here.
Rather than use chalk paint, I bought a Fabric Medium at Michaels. If you’re not familiar with this product, Fabric Medium is a milky liquid. You add it to a water-based latex or acrylic paint prior to painting your textiles. Its purpose is to keep the fabric feeling soft and flexible. There are a number of brand names to choose from like Martha Stewart, Plaid, Delta, Liquitex, and Americana to name a few.
After following the directions on the bottle, the first coat looked good. The velvet looked plush, and felt soft even after it dried.
The second and third coat all went wrong. I started seeing bleed-through, and even though I watered down the paint and sanded between each coat, this was my result. Stiff. Cracked. Crusty. Hard. In short.. it looks and feels horrible! I’m really disappointed.
Unlike my other painted chair, I don’t think any of my clients are going to be offering to take these off my hands.
I went online to see if anyone else has had this problem and found similar results here and here. I realize this fabric medium may work wonders on different types of textiles. It may work beautifully on fabric with no nap or a thin type cloth. However, in this case, I would have been better off saving some money and just using Chalk Paint. For now, I’ve lost my inspiration for restyling these chairs. When the urge strikes again, I think I’ll buy some pretty fabric and reupholster this mess.
I don’t regret trying this though, it was a good learning experience. The more techniques and products you try, the more you learn and discover what works best for YOU. Personally, I’ve discovered I prefer working with chalk style paints on fabric.
Let’s hope my next project turns out spectacular!
Feel free to pin this project and if you have any questions, ask away. 🙂
Have you tried this? If you’ve used fabric medium and it worked (or didn’t) – I’d love to hear what brand you used and what fabric it worked on.
Happy Painting and have a great day!
Denise x
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I tried Rit Fabric dye on two chairs of different fabric types. One was velvet and the rit dye was ok. The other was embroidered fabric and the dye was horrible- splotchy and two toned.
I am going to test the brushing theory on the Velvet because it is a bit rough.
My sister has used Rit on a few pieces of clothing and loved it, but sorry it didn’t work so well on the chairs. I’d love to hear how the velvet brushing goes Shawnda.
I think you should paint the fabric first without medium and when its dry finish with one coat of color with fabric medium
Or maybe just one coat . I think you can’t paint over when fabric medium with color is dry.
So the trick with fabric medium, no matter the fabric, is to mix equal portions of the medium with your paint. It thins the paint out. I am not sure about Martha Stewart, but I prefer the GAC products found in art stores. It make the fabric softer like screen print paint and washes really well. I have used this combination with Ralph Lauren metallics which produced AMAZING effects on denim.
You could probably sand the fiber which is generally suggested when using a variety of mixed mediums. If this does not work, unscrew the fabric and toss them in the washer on quick wash and see how you like the texture. I hope this helps!
I remember reading somewhere that if a fabric had been scotchguarded it would reject the painting method. Sounds crazy but something about the ph. I sprayed my fabric with windex to breakdown the scotchguard ph. Then wiped over with damp sponge and allowed it to dry before using chalk paint technique. Worked well!
Hi Denise! I noticed you only painted half the chairs. Did you try to paint the seats with your trusyed chalk paint method? Curious if chalk paint works on velvet.
Hi Barbara! No, I haven’t tried chalk paint on them. These chairs were put back in my inventory room and I haven’t looked at them since.
Debi Beard of Debi’s Design Diary painted an old velvet couch with her DIY chalk/clay paint and it turned out fabulous! And her technique makes it so it’s not stiff, nor does it crack. She has a detailed tutorial on YouTube. I’m totally obsessed with her beautiful “new” teal velvet sofa!
I’ll have to go check it out!
How disheartening. I know that hard lessons are just as important as easy ones but it always burns my cookies when I waste both time and product. AND, now your options are limited with your pretty chairs. Double burn! But, after the initial “taste” of the char wears off, there’s always a silver lining–we get to learn from you and thank you for it!
I had a similar result on a chair I “painted”. I followed all of the directions…making sure the fabric was damp, proper ration of medium to paint, etc. When the chair turned out like yours, I tried someone’s suggestion above and sanded it. Guess what? The fabric tore where I sanded it, even though it was a thick fabric. Now I HAVE to reupholster since applying another coat of paint will not fix the holes. Do you think that the chalk paint would have worked on your chairs? or were they simply not the proper type of fabric for painting?
Hi Meg… sorry to hear about your chair. I’ve had great success using chalky paint on other fabric projects (which you can see here and here) but I’m not sure how it would have worked on velvet type fabric. It couldn’t be any worse than this though.;) And how interesting that your fabric ripped! I tried sanding this painted velvet and the sand paper didn’t even make a dent. If felt like I was sanding a rock! Good luck reupholstering Meg… I’m sure it will look gorgeous.
Denise,
Thank you for sharing a disappointment with us. If a skilled painter can have mess once in awhile, I guess there is hope for the rest of us. The pecan chairs are nice and I know you will have to wait awhile before looking at them again, but you’ll do something fabulous with them. I have a shop so I know that a mistake costs time, money and TIME. Thanks again for being real.
Thanks for sharing both your fails and successes. So often I look at bloggers as those who have it all together in their “picture perfect” lives, it’s nice to know we all learn things from the messes we make and it makes us better at our jobs! Good luck upholstering them, when you do they will look incredible!
Now that really sucks! Sorry your project didn’t work out Denise 🙁 from reading your other experiments with painting/dyeing fabric there didn’t seem any reason you shouldn’t have been successful?? I know it feels to be gung-ho to start a project only to have it go sideways on you but like you and others have said ‘we learn from our mistakes’ (hopefully…lol)
Sorry to say – been there, done that 🙂 I had the same results and ended up needing to remove the painted fabric and reupholster. Good thing is that it looked wonderful in it’s new upholstery and sold. Thanks for the reminder that’s it’s worth giving new ideas a try!
Hi Denise,
Although I haven’t used the MS fabric medium, what I do know is that most fabric needs to be wet during the paint application. The directions may not have said that-in fact, I’ll water they didn’t, but even MS products have issues sometimes. And, I am not a fan of spray fabric paint because it dries too quickly, doesn’t penetrate the thread, and is generally too scratchy to the touch. Before taking off the stiff MS paint…may I suggest sanding it down first? I’ve sanded painted fabric, with much success. Then, try using a mixture of water, some fabric softener (not much), in a spray bottle, wet a small area, apply paint (any you wish, just not MS spray…), let it dry, and sanding in-between coats. Experiment, it can’t go worse, but I do think there’s much hope without resorting to upholstering. I’m looking forward to hearing how they turn out for you.
Thanks for these tips Margaret! The velvet was quite damp while I painted and I did sand… a lot!…with no success. But when I get the urge to tackle these again, I may experiment {as you suggest} before buying material. What have I got to lose right? 😉
I can’t understand what type of paint you used on your velvet chairs. I was under the impression that only chalk paint is suitable to paint upholstry. Did you mix your fabric medium with regular latex paint or the chalk paint? I’ve also heard of the water-fabric softener trick. I have a couch I’d like to do.
Hi there! Yes, I mixed the fabric medium with an Antique White acrylic paint. And I’m guessing before dying/painting fabric with chalk paint became so popular, fabric medium was used… and of course still is. You mix the medium with any regular ‘ol water based latex/acrylic paint, and then apply to fabric. I wasn’t aware of the fabric softener trick but maybe that would have helped these chairs. Good luck with your couch Mary! 🙂
Here’s an idea: maybe if you paint, then use a comb or DollarTree scrub brush to “sand” when the cloth is still wet it would soften up. It’s not like they are gonna get worse, right? Maybe the baking soda version of chalk paint would keep the nap fluffy. Just a thought. They will be lovely by golly, one way or another!
Great idea Sarah! I ended up reupholstering them for my bedroom makeover though. 🙂
Too many pretty fabric choices to have to paint it. I never like the finish of painted painted , it’s stiff.
I have to admit the velvet chairs …not a good look.
I really like the look and feel of the first chair I did but this one… not a good look at all, I agree.
By any chance did you try brushing with a stiff brush, either before or after the paint dries? I read somewhere you can dye suede but the end result must be vigorously brushed.
Hi Jeanie! Great suggestion but no, I didn’t try using a stiff brush. I did sand with various grits of sandpaper with no positive results.
Rats! That’s too bad, but I for one appreciate that you shared this. You may save lots of people a lot of trouble! A+ for effort. Those are sweet chairs….
Thanks Marcia! <3
Hi Denise. After following your blog for awhile and seeing all your successes, it was a
surprise to see a “failure”. But you are right, we only learn through experimenting.
I have not tried painting any fabric (yet). If I do, I would try it on some spare pieces of fabrics first to see the reaction of paint to different types of fabric. I can understand a fairly smooth fabric being more receptive to paint than one with a nap, so that is what I would stick with.
Question: Do you know if the paint covers upholstery stains?
Phyllisa
The paint didn’t cover the stains on this one! I cleaned the velvet before I started painting but each additional coat I put on, it started showing more staining/bleed-through. Weird. I think your idea of testing different types of fabrics is brilliant Phyllisa.
I came into possession of chair also covered in velvet that had been chalked painted on the velvet, it was never cleaned before hand, so once the paint was used by the previous owner, all the stains came through. Oh Yuk, this is still sitting in a corner hidden away for me to get the inspiration to attack this. It won’t be easy being a Chaise studded throughout and will need reupholstering and thank you for helping me decide whether painting fabric especially velvet is worth it. I’m saying NO for now and will take on the reupholster later down the track when I decide what fabric to use
Hi Kim! Glad this helped you decide. And my 2 chairs are heading for a hidden corner too. 😉
I think you have absolutely done a service to us all by sharing this “fail” – how many of us might have wasted our time and money without this information. I really appreciate it.
Thanks Linda. 🙂
Hi Denise. I always look forward to reading your blog and seeing your beautiful projects. Although this particular project “failed” I want to thank-you for sharing it. I find it very refreshing and encouraging to know that even a professional like yourself sometimes runs into problems with certain products/projects. I’ve been a faithful reader of your Salvaged Inspirations blog for a few years now. I appreciate your honesty, integrity, and step-by-step instructions. THANK-YOU AGAIN. You really are an inspirational person.
Thanks Monique!!! {Hugs} And I really appreciate you sticking around… even for my failed attempts. 😉
Aw, so frustrating but if you learn something the effort is worth it. Was looking forward to seeing these finished. Think of all your successes. Thank you for posting this info to prevent someone from repeating.
Thanks Tracy, and ya, a little frustrating but I’m not sorry I tried. That’s how we grow and learn, right?!