I bought Unicorn Spit after seeing it on many of the DIY sites I subscribe to.  And my very generous husband treated me to a full set of colours. From the time it arrived,  I was on the lookout for a piece of furniture to try it out on.  Being a  Unicorn SPiT Gel Stain & Glaze virgin I wanted to start off small. One of the main attractions was that you can still see the wood grain through the stain.

So when I saw this chair for free on a local site and thought what the hell, I have nothing to lose if I mess it up. The one thing I loved about the videos that I saw, was that if you did not like the outcome you could just wash it off. I am not the most creative when it comes to painting but thought the end product made a cute bedroom feature chair.

Unicorn Spit Chair Makeover

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Find a suitable chair

The chair was very pretty and I would usually restore it, but I was so desperate to try the Unicorn Spit stain and glaze this chair had to take one for the team.  Structurally the chair was falling apart so I had to fix that first.  I removed the seat and used wood glue to put it back together again.  I did not have clamps big enough so I used ratchet straps to hold the chair tight while the glue dried. 

Remove the old stain and varnish

There were so many layers of varnish on the chair that had been added over the years.  The backseat had large cracks which I thought at first was just the varnish that had cracked.  But it turned out some of the cracks were in the wood veneer. I felt using paint stripper would work quicker than sanding it because of all the layers. 

Paint stripper works great for a project like this. Apply the paint stripper to all the surfaces and leave it to sit.   I scrapped a small area to see if the varnish had soaked all the way to the base.  Once the varnish had lifted I used a paint scraper to remove the bulk of the varnish.  To get the rest off I used a hard scrubbing brush and soapy water to wash the chair down.  I don’t know if this is the correct way to do this, but I do all mine like this and it works well for me.

Add a base colour

I started with a coat of Zia teal which I applied to the chair using a foam sponge. To get the Unicorn spit stain to dry quickly I and used a heat gun and waved it over the surface until the stain turned a dull powdery colour. This took about 5 minutes for the whole chair.

Blend the Unicorn spit

Next, I blended in the blue thunder just in some areas and used the heat gun again to dry it.  I did try and blend more than one colour at a time and it turned into a mess they all blended together and the colours become “dirty”. So I would recommend doing one colour at a time.  It might work for others but I am not artistic like that. I repeated the same steps for the dragon’s belly and the Navajo Jewel. 

I had seen that someone had added the phoenix fire around the edges to get the aged look so I tried it and it turned out ok.  My favourite thing about Unicorn Spit stain and Glaze is that it becomes translucent.  When you add the old based polyurethane you can see all the detail of the wood grain through the colour.

Seal the unicorn spit

At this stage, the chair still looks dull and boring. It is the oil-based polyurethane that will make the colours vibrant.  I added 2 coats to this chair.  They become so vibrant and to be honest the colours did not turn out how I imagined they would. Depending on the angle and the light the chair can be green or blue or turquoise.

Cover the base with fabric

The base of the chair was the old-fashioned springs I used string to hold them in place. I added a new piece of foam I cut from an old foam mattress. I covered it in white leather thinking it will make the colours pop. But it went bang instead, I hated it.

I had this tapestry fabric that I bought from a thrift shop and cut the fabric to size and used a staple gun to attach the fabric at the back. The colours blended in better.  This is not my style of furniture but I just had to try it.  I try and be versatile and try a different project every time to keep my hobby interesting.  The buyer loved it. 

More Unicorn spit projects

I love Unicorn Spit stain and glaze.  My favourite application would have to be glass. These are my favourite projects I have made.

Unicorn spit glass vase

Decorative hurricane lamps

Christmas baubles

While I had all the colours out I gave this mirror a quick makeover.  When I put the colour on it looked like it was going to end up being a teal colour.  But once I added the polyurethane it turned a greenish colour so do a test patch first to make sure it is the colour you want.

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