Tinting Furniture Wax with Paint

I painted this little sofa table a few weeks ago and mentioned it in my post about rewiring the clock with the Sundial Cloth wire

One of my uncles made this table for me about 10 years ago.  It's a great little piece but it's been in our basement for awhile just because I don't always have space for it.  It was a cream color and the oak top was originally just cleared with a polyurethane. 

  So I started with ANNIE SLOAN chalk paint in Antibes (which is green) and I 'm sure this isn't recommended by Annie ---or maybe it is!!!---I have no idea....but I used acrylic paint to tint it to this teal color.  Just plain old blue acrylic paint.  It's water based and permanent so I figured it would be OK.  I poured some Antibes into a little container with a lid and mixed the blue in until I got the color I wanted.

You can also tint the wax.  Which is what's on the plate above...they recommend tinting it with their chalk paint colors. BUT since I can't afford to buy all the colors they offer, and I really wanted blue --I used the blue acrylic paint to tint my wax as well....

 I'm not sure that the photos really show how much this changed the color....but this gave the color some added dimension.  I didn't want to distress this piece but wanted something more than a flat color. You get a richer color overall....

   If you do this you want to make sure to let your wax dry and harden really well before you buff it.  I typically wax the piece and right away run over each part with a clean cloth....one quick swipe to remove any excess wax.  
You'll get blue wax on your towel or whatever you're "swiping" with.  

Wait until the next day before going over it really good with a clean cloth (I usually use an old T-shirt) to buff it and get that beautiful, soft sheen.  I got a little bit of blue the second day but not much and I just kept buffing until the cloth came away clean.  I stained the top with Minwax Walnut stain and waxed it with clear wax.

 I like that there are light and dark areas and just a really subtle variation in the color without being too drastic....

 So when I got it in the house and tried to take "after" photos it was a pretty cloudy day, and it looks a little bit "greener" in this photo than it really is....

 And then someone else got involved and I got distracted.....

 Mighty...she's something else....

This is a little better on the color but I think you get the idea....

it's a nice technique for getting a greater variety of colors out of one paint color.