It's finally done! Not without wanting to chuck it out the window a few times though. Here is what happened... I started, thinking that I would do a reverse stencil, meaning, paint over a stencil and then peel it up and it would leave the silhoutte.. easy??!?! WRONG. My first failed attempt the stencil was a disaster!! The paint leaked under it and bled everywhere and then when I peeled it, it peeled up all the paint along with it. I had to power sand all the drawers down again and start over!!! here's what happened:
Here is the dresser when I got it from CL for $20.
Here's the next thing I did. I took my Paris Grey Annie Sloan paint and painted the exterior, leaving the drawers with the original wood color.
Next.. here comes the failed decal. I applied the decal, painted primer, and then 2 coats of paint. I have no pictures of the horrific peeling because I was too annoyed to go get my camera.
Ok.. so then I screamed and ripped my hair out and sanded. here are the newly black drawers that I sprayed after sanding them down. I realized that a black silhouette would look better than the wood anyways.
Here's the NEW affixed decal.. remember the color is irrelevant since I'll be just using it as a stencil.
Here's the process of when after the drawers were painted and I began to peel up the decal. I decided to use spray paint this time so I wouldn't have that bleed that regular paint has.
And DRUMROLL PLEASE... Here is the finished dresser after waxing and distressing the edges and corners.
And lastly here are the before/afters of the mirror that goes with it.
And one last time here is the before/after: