Chevron Tables

I am finally back!

My life is crazy busy, but I am glad to be adding my newest craft project.

My sweet husband loves wood and I love paint. He looks at anything with wood finish and sees a work of art, most of the time my mind goes straight to the paint isle at Home Depot! With that said, here is the latest paint project that made my husband cringe.

I started with a coffee table and end table set that my husband made out of scrap wood last year. I didn't have a coffee table at the time so anything was better than nothing. I put a dark stain on the table and worked with it for a while. Two weeks ago (thanks to Pintrest for the chevron stencil idea) I decided to go with a chevron table top print.

This is a before picture of the two end tables after I lightly sanded them.

When you are going from stain to paint is is worth the mess and the time to lightly sand all the surfaces that will be painted. I sanded these tables with 150 sand paper.

After sanding the table the next step was primer (my least favorite part!!). While I really wanted to skip this step, trial and error have taught me that it is necessary.

I allowed the primer to dry and added two coats of white satin finish paint.

Next I cut a chevron pattern from a piece of cardboard, this was very important for keeping the lines even and straight.

I traced the first row using the end of the table as my starting guide. Each complete row required 12 strips of painters tape.

I just continued the same pattern one row after the next until I reached the end. I often have my laptop sitting near by with an episode of "Supernatural" playing. It might slow me down just a little but its worth it!

Next I used a fine sponge roller to apply two coats of paint. After the paint was about 80% dry I removed the tape. When the tape was gone I was so happy with the result.

 I walked by it just to look 15 times that night before I finally went to bed.

I would recommend that anyone who has a DIY project but are afraid to try....Just do it! You will be surprised by what you can do.

I am new to blogging so please forgive me if I am all over the place.

I am a "do it myself" kind of girl. I see something I like and my brain starts breaking it down so I can rebuild it my self. This post is about my Sister's wedding cake (three years ago). I am using this post as my kick off because I think this was my first really ambitious "do it myself" project.

It started with my sister getting engaged. I am 11 years older so I was super excited that my sister was getting married. I immediately volunteered to make the wedding cake to save money and because I was so excited. Keep in mind that at the time I had never made anything close to a wedding cake and had no idea how to.

I started by searching wedding cake images and saving hundreds of them. I settled on the right idea and began the process of learning how to decorate a wedding cake. I took a cake decorating class at Hobby Lobby which was very helpful in teaching the basics. After I got the hang of homemade frosting and how to spread it smoothly I was ready to practice on my own. I started very small with a friends birthday cake, just to see if I could get frosting right. This is my first cake

After this cake turned out I decided to move on to fondant. I did not take a class for this I just bought the fondant and YouTube became my best friend. I learned how to make roses and this is my first cake with fondant.

I learned how to make Calli Lillies on YouTube because that was the flower my sister wanted. I became the "go to" friend for birthday cakes which provided me with more practice.

I was really nervous when it got down to the wire because what if I ruined my sisters cake all because I opened my big mouth and said "I will make the cake!" Luckily my sister was just really happy and bridezilla was not in her vocab. The day before the wedding I worked for hours rolling out fondant and making fondant flowers (with the help of the bridesmaids! Thank You!). I had rolled so much fondant that I had bruises up both arms that had to be covered with make up the next day because I was also in the wedding party. Here is the finished product.

The cake was flawed but I am happy that it didn't look completely amateur. I would recommend that if you have ever wanted to try cake decorating find your closest Hobby Lobby store and get the ball rolling. If you don't have the availability to take a class YouTube is the next best thing. Thanks for reading my intro blog. I have some project going everyday so I will get a new post on here at least once a week.

Thank You!