Artsy-fartsy

Remember as a kid how fun it was to color? You colored in your picture book, colored on the walls and furniture. Got caught and spanked and told never to do that again... Ah, those were the days.

Well, since my mamma's not here to tell me "no" and it's my house anyway, I am at it again! I drew on my coffee table. OK, so I painted on it, but that doesn't come off as easily.

original look

It's a nice little coffee table that was given to me by a coworker. It's rectangular, light wood and has storage space inside (for board games and photo albums!!) and now has a design on it! I've got a very obvious theme in  my living room; purple! But besides that I have a wall hanging that I just love! It's a big heavy, rectangular piece of wood with tropical type flowers cut out and carved in it and painted silvery gray. I love this piece. I got it some time ago at a used furniture store for $20 and hung it the wall directly across from the front door. 

wall art and glass door

When I first saw it I knew I liked it, but somehow it seemed familiar. It wasn't until much later after moving some things around that I found a cabinet I have and it's glass door with an etching in it. The etching is almost the same as the big art piece hanging on my wall. That art in my mind has become sort of the theme of the room and will be continued on that table.

tracing the design

So, I took the aforementioned table and the wall hanging and paired them up. I placed the art on the table top and with a pencil I traced the flowers where I wanted them on the table. After removing the art I tweaked the tracing a bit to add a petal here and change a petal there. Then came the fun part. With a flat brush I carefully painted the area I'd traced with the same color purple that is on my walls in that room. 

Which leads to this post's  money saving tip! This tip is useful in most areas of life I think. Use your resources! When doing a project (like the artwork on my table) instead of having to match paint colors and nickle and dime yourself with such things as craft store paints; simply use save excess paints from other projects (or in my case entire walls) for use later. I made my table look completely different and it didn't cost me an extra cent!!

beginning of painting

thanks Bentley for not licking the table

It took a couple coats to not be streaky and to match the walls and amazingly enough my overly curious poochie didn't even attempt to lick off the paint!  And now I have a well coordinated artsy-fartsy coffee table!