Milking Stool Makeover & Free Printable

Hey guys! I’m excited to finally get this project up on the blog for you. I say “finally” because I started working on it a couple of months ago and then life happened, it got put on the back burner, and I didn’t get to it again until this week.

Such is the life of a blogger. Or at least this blogger. 🙂

Anyways, I got this milking stool for $5 at a flea market. I didn’t know what it was at first. I mean, I knew it was a stool, but I didn’t know that is was a stool for a specific purpose. (And before anyone revokes my “grew up on a farm” card, my grandfather was a vineyard and orchard farmer. The largest farm animal we had when I was growing up were chickens.) It was my bestie Lisa who saw it in the background of a photo I sent to her and she asked “what are you going to do with that milking stool?” I was like, “Is that what it is?”

What’s funny is that I almost didn’t buy it. When I first saw it at the flea market. I thought it was cool because of the handle, but I didn’t grab it right away. But as I wandered the rest of the flea market, I couldn’t get it off my mind. I finally went back to the vendor who had it and got it (the vendor didn’t know what it was either). I’m sure glad I did, because if I didn’t get it I would have eventually seen one like it somewhere and figured out what it was, and then kick myself for not getting one when I had the chance! 😀

I painted two coats of FolkArt Chalk Paint in White Adirondack, letting it dry thoroughly between coats. I like FolkArt Chalk Paint as it is a good and inexpensive paint to use on smaller projects, although they do carry larger sizes in their most popular colors for large projects.

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I used the water distressing technique in order to distress the white paint without removing the black paint underneath. I used a sponge that has the scrubby green side moistened with warm water, rinsing it out every so often as I worked. I did the distressing before I tried to transfer the printable because I didn’t want to take the chance of ruining it if I distressed afterwards.

Now for the free printable! I’ve included both the reversed version for doing transfers as well as the regular version for whatever else you might want to use it for.

You can click on the pictures below or the links below them to access PDF versions of this printable. Once you click on the link or picture, it will open up the PDF on your computer. You can then either print the PDF or save it on your computer to print later.

Dairy & Co-Op Free Printable

Dairy & Co-Op Free Printable Reversed

I printed out the reversed version of the printable to use as the transfer.

I used the Mod Podge technique for this transfer. This was the first time I’ve tried it, and it was definitely a learning experience. If you’ve never tried it before, you’ll want to practice with it on a piece of painted wood or something else you don’t care about messing up until you get the hang of it. If you put the Mod Podge on too thin, it won’t transfer; if you put it on too thick the paper will stick to it too much to remove easily.

I cut off the blank paper around the printable to make it easier to work with.  I applied a medium coat of Gloss Finish Mod Podge on the printed side of the paper using a foam brush, then centered and laid it face down on the milking stool, smoothing out any bubbles with one hand while holding the transfer in place with the other hand. I let it dry overnight.

Now the fun part begins! 🙂 I sprayed the transfer with water and let it soak in the paper for a few minutes before attempting to remove it.

Using a gentle touch, I slowly began rubbing off the paper. It took around 20 minutes to get all the paper off. I sprayed on more water as I needed if I ran into any areas that felt dry and wasn’t coming off easily.

If you start noticing some ink coming off as you work, don’t panic! There will still be some ink left in the paper, and it will come off the wet paper as you work it off.

You might notice a blank spot on the ribbon part of the transfer. I had an air bubble there that I didn’t notice until I started removing the transfer. Since I planned on distressing the transfer a bit anyway it wasn’t a big deal, but next time I’ll be more careful and make sure I get all the air bubbles out.

After I was finished, the transfer looked “brand new” as this technique worked really well for me. I lightly distressed it to give it a more aged look, then applied a coat of FolkArt Clear Wax over the entire stool to seal everything up.

I am super happy with how it turned out!

This is where the milking stool is going to “live” in our home for now – by the corner hutch in our family room.

I hope you enjoyed this project and you get all kinds of good use out of the free printable! If you have any questions or comments, please leave them in the comments section below – I’d love to hear from you!