As the US distributor for Frenchic Furniture Paint you would think we had paint in our blood and in our bloodline, wouldn't you? Not necessarily. We were actually late discovering the joy of painting and even, frankly, what it is. I remember the first time I read about it on a social media forum and I was wondering, "Paint your furniture with chalkboard paint? Really?" 

The education started there, and like everything else that we've ever done, we threw our entire energy into learning and experiencing all we could. For over a year we scoured the area, driving up to four hours to larger nearby cities to buy various brands of chalk, clay, and mineral paints. We even had some mailed from as far away as Canada. The creative process of making one-of-a-kind masterpieces from run-of-the-mill mass-produced cast-offs is addictive! You really can make every piece uniquely yours! And it was SO easy! Soon we had a garage full of projects.  Then we purchased a box truck and spent our nights sitting in auction houses eating stale popcorn and drinking poor quality coffee. Then we opened a store!

And then...I struck gold! I discovered how to make my own paint from "oops" house paint. Don't do this. It's cheap. Oh, yes, it's practically free! Safe? No. I discovered there are reasons manufacturers are regulated by OSHA and EPA. I became very ill spraying my homebrew of latex and Plaster of Paris (but I got $55 for that nightstand I had bought for only $5!). I got so sick I stopped painting for 2 years to recover. Even the smell of paint made me sick. We closed our store and put painting and selling furniture on the back-burner for forever (we thought).

I guess you are wondering how we got from there to here?

The store we had started and had to let go became, through a series of events, ours again. As you know, everything commercial requires social media and the internet, and we began again networking with online forums and groups. One day I came across a posted picture that was so impressive I couldn't get it out of my mind. I eagerly showed it to my spouse and we realized it was an effect we couldn't reproduce with any of our existing products (even if we were to retry our homemade magic formulas!) I contacted the person who posted the picture (Linda Karslake of Linda Karslake Paint Studio) and asked her how she did it and she said she used only Frenchic Paint Products available in the UK where she lived. She went on to tell me that they were not only easier to use than everything else, but they are odorless and very safe. YAY! She also said they were only available in the UK. Not so yay. I did a little homework and discovered that Frenchic was the fastest-growing chalk and mineral paint in England's long history. Wow! We had to bring it here somehow.

Fast forward to today. It's here. Frenchic is here! Complete with our own website and this fantastic blog (go ahead and roll your eyes, it's ok, everyone else does). We have our own growing network of retailers we snobbishly call "stockists" in the finest Old World tradition.  Be sure to check out our Find A Stockist section of the site. If there isn't a stockist near to you feel free to order a sample of Frenchic to try yourself. The coverage is amazing, the quality is far beyond any competing product, and it is completely safe to use. Frenchic uses food-grade pigments in all the paints and cosmetic-grade colors in Frensheen, the drop-dead gorgeous metallic powders you can mix with our waxes and Finishing Coat. This is starting to sound like a sales pitch, which we all hate, so I'll sign off for now wishing you "Happy Painting!"