Mod Podge with Fabric

I use Mod Podge and tissue on so many items.  It covers well, gives a new look to just about anything and is very user friendly.  I've never used it on fabric, until now.

My daughter is going back to college to a new apartment.  That means she is on the hunt for pieces of furniture to fill up the rooms.  Last week she stopped at a garage sale and picked up a much needing side table for her bedroom.  She paid $3.00 for it and brought it home......to me. It's very sturdy, but very beat up.  Actually, I would not have picked this one up myself.  It really looked like someone had taken a hammer to it.  But she's a college student, on a budget so it seemed like a good buy.

Her bedroom is done in shades of green and orange-giving it a tropical look.  Her bed comforter has large, tropical orange flowers with plenty of fern-like leaves.  She wanted this side table to match.

Since the piece was so beaten up I decided to cover the top and drawer front with fabric.  I picked up some striped green fabric and a bottle of Mod Podge-Hard Coat.  Hard coat gives a tough and sturdy finish.  So sturdy that you can sand it.  It gives a great finish and covers all the sins.

Here is what I did.  I started by standing it down to get it as smooth as possible.  I didn't kill myself over this because I knew later it would be covered with the fabric. I then spray painted the whole thing brown.  This matches all of her furniture.

Don't you just love the old colonial handle on the front?  That's going.......

Above, I am applying a coat of the hard coat Mod Podge.  This has to be done fairly quickly because it dries very quickly. The instructions on the bottle suggest painting the Mod Podge onto the fabric and then laying it out on the surface.  I just founded it easier to paint it onto the table top. Since the fabric I used was a fairly sturdy cotton, it produced no air bubbles.  Air bubbles can be rolled out with a roller.

The hardest part of this project is cutting the fabric straight.  I used a straight edge to accomplish this, but it still wasn't easy.

Once the fabric is placed onto the table I applied three more coats.  I used fine sand paper to sand out all the bumps and then applied two more coats.  It goes quickly and the Mod Podge dries fast.

Here is the side table all completed.  The piece on the bottom was an after thought, but my daughter thought it would look good.  I drilled a hole in the center of the drawer and added the knob.  The knob was plain wood, so I hand painted an orange flower (thinking this would look cute with the orange accents in her room) on it. 

Three dollars-garage sale find-a little work and there you have it.

Someone gave me a pink and brass lamp last year, so I'm working on changing that up so it matches this table.  I'll post that when it's done.

Christy

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