I have a thing for wooden trays.  And wooden boxes.  Love ‘em & buy ‘em often at yard sales, thrift stores, etc…  I bought this tray many moons ago, who knows where.  It is small & shallow and in the past, I have used it to hold candles for a centerpiece or to carry a few small things outside.  I did the wood burning on it a few years ago when I got the wood burner, with the intention of finishing it and, here, I finally have!

A little whack with the hammer cured the slight separation at that corner.

While I was working on the back porch table, I gave the tray a swipe of the green stain and another of the dark walnut over that.

Then I finished it off with a coat of polyurethane.

And, since there was glue residue on the bottom of the inside of the tray, I decided to really finish it with a lovely piece of moss green felt.  I cut it to fit, but didn’t glue it so that if it becomes soiled, I can replace it easily.

I love Homefires’ Jellybean Rugs.  I’m not just saying that because they license designs from me.  I am saying it because they truly are a quality product and I am proud to show off my work on them!  Here are my most recent designs…

Gracie was kind enough to help with the styling of this shot…

And this design, similar to the above Jellybean Rug, is for their Home Accent line…

This is just a fun, fun, fun, product.  These napkins stand up for decorating a cute table. There are my latest designs with ThemeNaps.  I understand that this sketchy look is doing very well ~ hooray!

The moment you’ve been waiting for….the finished table!  (click for larger view)

…and a closer look… You can see here the “worn” edges I created…  I think I did a pretty good job matching the top, trim & legs in color.  Not that it mattered to me all that much; it is just a back porch table…

Here’s a closer look at the finish on top which really is slightly darker than it appears here.  And for some reason the little nicks & dents don’t show in this shot either.  But they’re there….

Overall, I would say we’re both very happy with our homemade table and think it will serve us well for many years to come.  I’ve never made furniture before and I thought it was great fun!  Of course, Captain Hubby did the carpentry part and a fine job at that.  What a sweetie he is to help me with all my crazy ideas…

As you can see here, the chairs don’t exactly match ~ they’re just comfy back porch chairs…

And, of course, I had to take my wood burner and sign our masterpiece on the underside…

Now…what do I want to make next….?

Now, back to those legs.  They’re teak and were originally stained dark.  So, I rough sanded them to reveal some of the lighter, reddish wood underneath (now the red mahogany stain base on the table top makes sense, no?) and leaving some of the dark.   Here you see the original on top and the rough sanded one on the bottom.

To the rough sanded legs, I added the same green stain I used on the table top…

A coat of varnish deepened the color slightly (not shown).

Captain Hubby built a frame for the underside and applied this trim…

…which I smacked a little with the meat tenderizing mallet and stained with similar layers as the table top.  I was aware that the top, trim & legs were not going to match perfectly and didn’t really care if the did, but this trim took some extra work to get it close enough.  I won’t bore you with the step-by-step, but will just jump to the end product…

Next post ~ the finished table!  We enjoyed our Sunday paper & coffee sitting at it this morning!

I just had to take a break from showing you the progress of my table to tell you about this new show!  I want you to have time to set your DVRs – how did we ever live without those?

The show called “Work of Art: The Next Great Artist” ~ it is basically a Top Chef or Project Runway kind of show, but with artists competing for a solo show at the Brooklyn Museum and a cash prize.

I watched the first one and found it to be great fun.  I think you might too.  So set your DVRs ~ it is on Bravo, on Wednesday at 11pm – lousy time slot, but I guess that is what DVRs are for!  So come back and let me know what you thought!

Now for the fun part!  Since I wanted a distressed look, I had to fake it.  I took the pad lock and repeatedly tossed it over the table top.  It made a variety of pleasing marks!  I smacked the wood here & there with the meat tenderizing mallet and zinged a few spots with the pattern wheel and finished by scratching a little with a nail.

After a couple more trips to Lowe’s and a local paint store for different shades and then copious tests of a variety of stains & combinations thereof….

…I decided to start with a mahogany gel stain.

Since it had the base I wanted, but was too red, I went over that with a couple coats of a dark walnut.

Once that was dry ~ and this was the really scary part ~ I took the sander to it in random places…

Now to add some depth & interest to the color… a couple of coats of green stain!

And here, I neglected to photograph how it looked after I toned it down & deepened the finish with yet another coat of the dark walnut before I started varnishing.  But you’ll get the idea when you see the finished surface :-)

More to come!

Ten years ago, I acquired a large wooden table that I rehabed somewhat and put to good use on my back porch.  Her veneer was slightly chipped, but fine for a screened back porch location.  Well, the veneer has peeled quite beyond repair to the point I can no longer strategically hide all the spots with place mats when I have people over for dinner.  As sad as I am to see her go, I am excited about her replacement, which Captain Hubby & I have made from scratch.  Oh what fun! (at least I thought so; not sure Captain Hubby would call his part fun :-)

We started by checking out the Sarasota Architectural Salvage while visiting family in the area.  I found a perfect set of legs almost immediately and scored them for $24.  I’ll get back to what I did with them later.

I decided that for the top, I wanted an aged slave/farm table look.  Captain Hubby & I went to Lowe’s to pick out wood and I went right for the knotty pine.  Captain Hubby & I had a minor disagreement here as he stated that the $3.50/plank wood I chose looked like a picnic table and didn’t I want the nicer stuff?  I stood firm that I wanted knots & character, not smooth perfection.  He deferred to my creative direction…

From here, Captain Hubby joined the pieces with biscuits & wood glue (I’d never even heard of this biscuit joiner thingy).  Since the planks weren’t quite wide enough with three, we added another couple of inches of boards between them.

This is what it looked like before sanding…

….and after he sanded the top side.  I am afraid I neglected to take a photo of how I sanded the edges round-ish and indented in places to look like worn spots.  You’ll be able to see that in later pics.  This is before the edges were sanded at all…

More to come….

I love it when you sewing wizards show me what you’ve made with my fabrics!

Such is the case here ~ Marlene at Sipiweske Quilt Designs won a fat quarter give-away of my SoHo Fabric for Studio E Fabrics.  She sent me this pic of a nearly-done quilt she’d designed using her winnings.  Love that border!  Beautiful, Marlene!

Hop on over to her blog to see what else Marlene is whipping up ~ she’s a busy gal!

If any of you wizards out there have projects made from my fabrics, I’d love, love to see them!

I’m just about as excited as a girl can be!  Check out these wicked great samples of my latest collections for my alter-ego design studio ~ Bella Roo.  These lovelies will be making their debut at Joann Fabric Store near you in July.  Hope you love them as much as I do…

This is funky & fun “Floral Petals”…

…and the whimsical, yet somehow formal “Mono Deco Floral”….

In other sewing news, my sewing machine has been in the shop for the past week and I miss it like crazy.  Who knew?  The button hole attachment never did work properly, and since I was quite the novice when I got the machine, I thought surely it was operator error.  After many attempts at following the instructions in the book to the letter and still failing, I took it back to where it was purchased and asked if it was something I was doing.  The gal there tried it as well with the same results, thereby confirming that I wasn’t crazy.  (small victory, I know)  However, this led to having to leave my baby there even though I was in the middle of a birthday pressie project.  They said one to two weeks and week one is down.  Hoping I get a call any day now telling me she’s ready to come home.  I miss her dearly….