Make your own milk paint!
Milk paint is increasingly a modern spin on an old style of decor. Instead of latex or lead, it uses casein, extracted from milk, mixed with an alkali like lime or borax. Add colour and water, and you're ready to go. It is permanent colour, but not especially durable. You'll want to seal it to make it water and dirt proof. A real old-schooler would seal it with linseed oil or beeswax, but there are modern clear coats that are somewhat hardier and still pure enough to eat (unless you're vegan or casein-intolerant). You can also get crackle-coats for a chic distressed look - and it's all natural, so no VOCs, and no wondering if that VOC-free commercial paint is really food grade.
Sinopia offers recipies on how to mix your own milk paint.
Or, you can buy ready-mixed milk paints from Nutshell natural paints or Francesca's Paints.
>Old Fashioned Milk Paint of Groton, Mass, has a gorgeous gallery of milk paint finishes. I especially love what the B. M. Japan Corporation did with their offices, pictured above.
