Last year while shopping for Christmas gifts and new decor for myself 😉 I found this cute Santa bust at Michaels craft store. I loved how he looked, I just wasn’t a fan of the colours. They were nice, but I had wanted the gold one that was a bit more suited to how I was decorating, which was kind of traditional, with a mix of vintage, is maybe how I would describe it.
Last year after doing some minor house renovations, by the time Christmas came, I was all but done with paint or any more small projects. So fast forward to this year and I was ready to see this Santa blend in with the decorations.
This is the paint we had on hand, from using it on other projects. I did no prep to the Santa before hand. But there may have been some kind of finish on it. It did end up taking 4 coats of the black spray paint before all of the colours were covered.
This is after just the first coat, you can see some of the red and white still showing through. After this dried, we put on 3 more coats.
Now, this is the first time I had ever used Rub and Buff. I didn’t expect it to dry as fast as it did. I had planned on painting the gold on, then using a soft rag to “buff” it off. It dried so quickly that that idea didn’t really work. Over the smooth areas of the ornament, I did paint on the gold Rub and Buff and then as quickly as I could, I did buff some off. Over the textured areas, I just took the paintbrush and went with the “grain” of the textured areas. I wanted some of the black to show through.
I didn’t use any special brush, just a paint brush from the dollar store that I had on hand here. It was a small brush used for kids crafts.
I used Rub and Buff in Antique Gold. I don’t see it on amazon at the moment, but I did find several options together, so you can kind of see the variations in the colours. https://amzn.to/4rDe7MF.
It looks like the coloured one that I bought is no longer available at Michaels. The one I originally wanted is still available (It’s not available in Charlottetown, but it is on the website)https://canada.michaels.com/product/75-santa-bust-tabletop-decor-by-ashland-10789361.
I’m actually a little glad that this one wasn’t available last year because the one I painted is exactly what I wanted.
This is the final look, I love how it turned out!
If you try any projects at home, let me know how they turn out. 🙂
Have a great weekend!
