Tabletops.......

These pine rounds are available at Home Depot and Lowe's for under $10.00. They are sturdy, thick and need just a little sanding on the sides to make them smooth. There is so much you can do with these pine rounds including:

• hand-paint designs on them


• mosaics-tile or glass


• decoupage


• stenciling


• faux finish-an example would be marbling
  

I love creating tabletops out of these pine rounds. I recently decided to make a "coffee" table- a table created just for having coffee. Here is what I came up with using the following techniques:

Hand painting

Wallies prepasted cutouts

decoupaging

small glass tiles

The Wallie cutouts I purchased at http://www.wallies.com/

They have a great selection of cutouts that you can use. If you don't feel like you can hand paint, Wallies are a great substitute. In this case I used the coffee cups and the Cafe sign in the middle. Here are step by step directions:

1. I lightly sanded my pine round.

2. Using three colors of acrylic paint (gold, tan and darker brown) I used a paint brush to create a sponge like paint finish. Basically I just blended the three colors together.

3. I hand-painted the colored boxes around the perimeter of the circle. Although you can't really see it in the photograph, the squares are not perfect (believe me). I just used a square brush and painted boxes...one stroke and then the next. I don't like perfect! It's hand made and the imperfections make it look that way.

4. I applied glossy Modge Podge onto four areas of the table (where I would place the coffee cups) and then carefully applied the coffee cups. I then put Modge Podge on top of the cups and applied a layer onto the entire table. That gives it a glossy finish.

5. I drew out a circle in the center of the pine round. Here I placed squares of red-checkered tissue paper and applied Modge Podge. The design is so random that it's hard to imagine the tissue paper was red checks orginally, but I like that look.

6. I glued small glass tiles around the perimeter of the inner circle. I found a little bag of these at Michael's Craft store. I used Mosaic glue for this step.

Here is the little coffee table all finished. I purchased four ready made legs at Home Depot and just painted them with acrylic paints to match. The entire table was given a coat of polyurethane when finished, just to protect it.

Check out www.wallies.com for some interesting cutouts that you can use on furniture, walls, ceilings and tables. I especially love the tree frogs!

My table will go out onto the screened-in porch right next to the chair where I have my morning coffee. I have just purchased two more pine rounds and plan to make some "classy" glass mosaic tables. Stay tuned...........

Future post: Decorating for Mardi Gras. I spent four wonderful days visiting New Orleans. I had never been there before so it was a real exciting trip for me. I loved the people, the place and the atmosphere. Now I just have to celebrate and enjoy Mardi Gras in my own home and I'll show you how I do that.

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