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….

No, not on an airplane or even in the Erica Jong sense.  You see, what I have always kind of sort of dreamed of is becoming an abstract painter.  But what I have, seems to be a fear of letting the paint fly.

I’ve always preferred control over my designs whether I start on the board and end up in the computer or start there to being with.  Oh, don’t like that color? Poof, easily changed.  Don’t like that element there or want it bigger or smaller? Done.  But putting paint & other things on canvas with no undo button is kind of scary for the likes of me.

A few classes I’ve taken here and here have helped me, but I am still a rather methodical painter.  It is a giant leap to even refer to myself as a painter.  Perhaps if I try to commit to one painting a week I can break out of it?  (hmmm…do the words try and commit go together?)  As scary as it is, I sure do love doing it…..

What have you always wanted to do that you feel your current creative nature stifles?

This painting is still ongoing…

Yup, from my first job.  Wait ~ that’s not right ~ it was my second job.  My first summer job was behind the concession stand at a movie theater shoveling popcorn and pushing Ju-Jubees.  The best part was I got to see all the movies as many times as I wanted for free!  But I digress…

My second job was full-time at Pic ‘n Save which was a small department store that was a cross between Walgreen’s and the then non-existent Wal-Mart.  I ran the cosmetics department.  That is to say, I unpacked boxes, priced items and stocked shelves all while ringing up things like shampoo & nail clippers.

I often closed and before anyone could leave, the store manager had to inspect your department and make sure everything was ship-shape, no bottles out of line on the shelves…that kind of thing.  One night Mr. Manager was taking a very long time to come along and release me.  So, all boxes having been unpacked and since the store was closed and there were no customers, I waited ~ and I doodled on a pad next to the register.

The next day ~ my day off ~ I get a call from Mr. Store manager asking me to come in to talk.  He brandished the doodles that I had so carelessly left behind and told me if I had time to draw, I had time to work and that I was fired.  I still remember his outrage at having found those doodles.  Of course trying to explain that I’d only doodled because I was waiting for him did absolutely no good.  Would it be mean of me to hope he is a stock boy at Walgreen’s or a greeter at Wal-Mart now?

I love, love, love my iPhone.  I’ve had it since January and I haven’t downloaded loads of apps.  I only have five that didn’t come with it, and all but two were free and most are functional ~ one is a (free) dictionary.  Yes, I am apparently a nerd.

One that I paid for is fun ~ Camera Bag.  I am sure this one will not be news to many of you as it seems like everyone is posting photos with Camera Bag filters applied.  Some very well done, I might add.  This fact makes me almost over it already before I’ve even begun, but really, it is kind of fun.  I’ve only played with it a little, so let me show you my jump onto the bandwagon…

The light was so pretty in my backyard the other night, I grabbed my iPhone & took a few snaps.  Here is the original snap:

and here is the same pic with one of the Camera Bag filters applied…sorry ~ can’t recall which one!

The light really was pretty in the trees (yet another filter)…

And here’s my good boy, Cry Baby, filtered.  Whatchya doin’, Mommy?

Does anybody think this is as…tacky as I do?  Right there amid the “Paint your Pet’s Portait” kit, “Walk Yourself Thin” kit and “101 Oragami Projects” kit, sits the “Mother Teresa Guided Inspirations” kit.  Sometimes, I think we go too far…