If you've always wanted to paint in a creative way but never got around to it, painting furniture is a good way to express your hidden gift. You can be modern, traditional, outrageous, retro or something completely original when you paint on furniture.
Stencil
Create clusters of ivy or flowers on kitchen china cabinets with stencils. Paint the china cabinet in a cream color for your base coat. If you have an older cabinet with peeling paint, get a shabby-chic look by sanding down the peeled areas and applying the stencil art where there is still paint. Use two or three colors--green for leaves and pink or blue for flowers. Tape over the sections of the stencil you aren't using while applying a different color. Seal with a clear polyurethane.
Colonial Folk Art
Paint a large, wooden chest in a light neutral background, such as a muted beige. Find folk art images from colonial times, such as rows of hearts, farm scenes, shafts of wheat, trees, sunflowers, sheep and cows. Sketch them onto the chest in varying sizes and paint them. The images don't have to be in matching scale. If you don't want to draw and paint folk art, try folk art stencils (see Resources for folk art ideas).
Bright Contrast for a Girl's Room
Paint a vanity table in a bright chartreuse. Paint the drawer pulls on the vanity a bright purple (remove the knobs to do this). Paint the vanity stool a bright purple, and paint small chartreuse flowers onto the stool seat. Paint the top of a small bedroom side table in chartreuse, and paint the legs purple to coordinate with the vanity.
Painted-on Gingham
Give a chest of drawers a fresh look with painted-on gingham. Choose colors such as bright blue, pink, periwinkle or green. To create the gingham pattern, you'll need an unfinished wood surface, a notched squeegee, white acrylic semi-gloss paint for a base coat, your colored paint and a glaze medium. Apply the base coat, and after it dries create a one-to-one mixture of colored paint and glaze. With a small hand roller, apply it to the wood surface. Before it dries, drag your squeegee across the surface in one direction, left to right. Next, pull the squeegee from top to bottom to create the gingham check.
Freehand Whimsy
Paint freehand whimsical art on a chair. For example, paint a chair base bright blue, and paint the chair back black. Cover the black with small white dots. Paint a pink spiral surrounded by bright green dots and squiggles on the chair seat. Apply multi-colored rings around the chair legs.
