How to age and distress wooden decor

Prepare your wooden object. Clean it if it is dirty, sand it if it is too polished, or feel free to prime.

Paint a thin base coat on your wooden object. I wanted mine to look rotten/mossy underneath. You want to choose a color that contrasts your top coat. Let dry.

Paint on your crackle medium. This stuff looks like spit but dries quickly and shiny. Let sit in dry area for at least 2 hours.

Paint on top coat. I noticed the areas with thinner paint seemed to crackle better.

Let dry.

It will begin to crackle as it dries. Cool, huh?

Wear a mask. Sand down edges and corners that would naturally wear. This takes some patience, not brute force. If you push hard you will sand through your base coat, which may look nice in some spots.

Sand thicker areas.

Where my wood showed through, I used a wood stain pen of darker color to age my wood. (see next)

Then taking the paint dust on my hands

I quickly smudged the wood stain with paint dust so it blended well.

Another example....

After

Sand corners then dust out paint bits.

Use stain in corners and blend with sponge.

Wipe down really well after sanding

Brush dust out of corners

Add oil finish of your choice. I recommend oil finish because it will naturally yellow over time adding to the aged look of your piece.

Finished.

Details.

More details

Hanging