Oversized Canisters Get a French Makeover!

Yep, its Makeover Monday again ... and here they are.  These are large, vintage galvanized cans with lids and bails.  I got them at two different estate sales, and they were pretty boring. But I thought they had potential for storage.  I started by spray painting them an off white.

Then went to work on Graphic's Fairy looking for antique ephemera labels that were long and tall.  One of them is a French perfume label ... obviously oversized.  The other is a French undergarment purveyor's label.

The background color of the undergarment company was white, and it shows up more than I like on the cream colored can to the right.  The perfumer's background color was also a cream color which looks much better (below right).  I am planning to try some more of these using a paper color that matches colored painted surfaces ... should be an interesting experiment. 

I used the reverse Modpodge method that I have been playing with.  You reverse print your graphic, then apply it to your dry surface with modpodge against the face of the reversed graphic. Rub it firmly with your finger until it is all tightly adhered, then wait for it to dry.  In this case we went to a funky movie, that I loved called Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.  We have friends with interesting tastes in movies, but we LOVED this one.  Some authentic Italian (I adore Gnocchi) finished up my waiting time, and I came home to rub away the majority of the paper with my slightly dampened finger.  A longish process, that must be carefully done.

I love how they turned out, and I love this process.  And a special thanks to Karen at Graphics Fairy for making these awesome graphics available.