Vintage Travel Trunk

My Aunt Susie has this old...Old...OLD...family heirloom black travel trunk that she is sure was brought over from Italy when the family came to America.

She asked me to do a little something to make it more special and I bounced around several ideas for a few weeks. I was going to mod-podge a map of Italy using scrapbook paper but couldn't find any after several shopping trips. Then I had the idea of painting the top to look like a blown-up version of a vintage postcard from Ancona, Italy...where our family is from. It was a really easy project and just took me a day to finish.

I primed the top with spray primer, using just a light coat.

Then I painted the base coat a creamy, light tan; the color an aged postcard would be. She plans to put it by her sunroom, so I used a black paint pen to script the following quote, translated into Italian:

::Home sweet home:

Where ivy grows, roses bloom,

and sunlight fills my favorite room. ::

I sanded lightly by hand to distress age it, then top coated with 2 coats of a water-based poly.

Here's the finished Product:

The "stamp" has the year they immigrated, 1902, and the city they were from.

I wrote the English translation on the inside of the trunk.

I think it turned out classy, eclectic, and hopefully special.

Until next time!

Katie

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