A French Coffee Table

Hello!  Is everyone just about ready for Thanksgiving?  Two more days!!

I have been working on projects like a crazy woman all weekend as well as yesterday and today.  I have completed a lot though.  I painted and finished three tables, finished 3 burlap table runners, reworked our coffee station, hung a menu board, worked on some really cool glittered birds for Christmas decorations(which I cannot wait to show you!!), did a little furniture rearranging and last but not least, I began just a teensy bit of Christmas decorating today.  Whew...that was a mouthful!  I promise you though, I did not ignore my husband or kids...I kind of worked these projects into a bit of spare time .  I typically don't go on project binges like this but I just had too many unfinished things lying around that needed my attention.  It was time to get them done. 

 Okay, I've gotten off track...so back to the French table

I found another wonderful graphic from The Graphics Fairy (love her!)  I have been wanting to paint this on a table for awhile now, but didn't know how to enlarge it without having to invest in an overhead projector or pricey photo software.  Well, as luck would have it, there is a website that will do this for you for free!  Wha??  Free?? 

Yes!  Karen has a complete tutorial on how to do this.  The site is called BlockPosters and you can upload any photo from your computer to be enlarged.  You just decide how many sheets of printer paper you will need to cover your surface and block posters will enlarge your photo into a grid pattern.  Then you print it out, piece it together and voila!  Instant pattern.

So here it is all taped out, ready to trace with my pen.  What you do is rub over the back of your paper with chalk, lay the image down on your surface as pictured above, then begin to carefully trace over the whole thing.  When you're finished, pick up your paper and the image is left behind.  Now you fill it in with a paint pen or a very thin brush and acrylic paint.

Here it is after I finished all of the lettering.  Notice anything missing?  Um yeah, the "DE" in between the first two words.  You see, after I spent a half hour tracing each little letter, flourish and scroll, I excitedly lifted my paper to reveal......a BIG giant smear of yellow chalk.  Yep, that's right.  I couldn't tell one letter from the next.  I couldn't see where one word began and the next one finished and since my hand was about to fall off  a little sore from all that tracing, I just decided to wing it...do the best I could and not worry about whether or not it was perfect.  It's supposed to look old and vintage anyway right?  Since I couldn't see the "DE", no "DE" went in there.  The funny thing is, I didn't notice it right away.  Something was off, but I couldn't quite figure out what it was.

When it was done, I kept looking at it, feeling like something was missing. 

When it dried, I distressed it a bit and then I glazed it.  Despite the missing "DE" I still really like it!  There was a lot of love put into this table and now she's sitting all cozy in front of the sofa in the basement family room.

 

Would you believe it took me two days to figure out that the "DE" was missing?

Go figure!

Have a great week!

xo and God Bless,

Kathleen