W.O.W Wednesday- Vasoline...it's not just for lips.

I recently found this $5 beauty.

I immediately fell in love with the unique, recessed pulls and brass corner embellishments.  If the wood had been in better shape I would have left it as is, but it was clear it needed to be painted.

The first thought I had was, "how am I going to protect the hardware and brass details from paint"?

Taping wasn't really an option.  There wasn't any way to tape off the recessed hardware anyway.  Then my common sense kicked in and I immediately thought of petroleum jelly.

I figured if it's good enough to repel water, it should be good enough to repel paint too, right?  So I went with it...hoping the outcome would not be a hot {pink} mess.

I used a Q-tip to apply the jelly all over the corner detail, hinges and pulls.  I tried my best not to get any on the wood...although it's inevitable a little will.  I made sure to apply a thick layer of jelly just to be sure no paint would stick.  I don't have a picture of it, but I figured it was pretty self explanatory.

Then I let the paint fly-or spray...whatever.

Here's how the hardware looked after it was painted.

You can clearly see the Vasoline underneath the paint.

I let the piece sit overnight so that the paint was nice and dry before I tried to remove the petroleum jelly.  Using a clean, dry cloth, I carefully wiped the petroleum jelly away and was left with...

delicious brass.  Hello there!

I spent a little time scraping and cleaning off some "left behind" paint.

And there were a few, small spots I had to touch up where the paint had peeled due to some 

AWOL Vasoline.

But, on the whole, the Vasoline process was quite effective.  Much quicker and easier to implement than taping...at least in this case.

After tidying up the piece a bit, she looked good as new.

 It's the perfect pop of pink in my daughter's room.  And the brass...just, YUM!

So, the big question, would I use this process again?

My answer, absolutely!