Tripod table!
Wow, this week really snuck up on me. As I mentioned before, the work at my apartments comes in massive waves! And the past month has been a kicker! I have spent the last two days tearing out a bathroom floor and scrubbing cigarette ashes out of a refrigerator. Seriously. Don't ask because trust me, some stuff you just wouldn't believe!
Anywho, several months ago I ALMOST tossed a couple of old tripods I found in a box of stuff from an auction, but thought I might find a good way to repurpose them in the future. Sure enough Cristina at Remodelando la Casa shared a precious tripod table she made. BINGO! See, inspiration can be found every where and her inspiration was exactly what I needed!
I will be honest...Cristina made a circle top for her little table. I tried. I don't know if it is my age or too much coffee, but I could not cut out a perfect circle for the life of me. I had an octagon piece of glass that was the perfect size so I used it as a template and cut MDF tops with my chop saw set at a 45 degree angle.
I used MDF because I decided to do a little decoupage on the tops, and honestly, I had it on hand.
After cutting out the tops, I sanded the MDF smooth, hit it with Kilz, sanded again and then painted it all black.
I was fortunate that my tripods had "flat" tops after removing some of the bolts and knobs. I was able to drill holes in the flat surface and use liquid nail and screws to attach the tripod to the table top.
I have another tripod similar to Cristina's that I will have to use a bolt and flange like she did. Her tutorial is awesome and much more indepth than mine! (I'm a baaaad blogger!)
My first little decoupage craft project wasn't too terribly hard because the tile I used was relatively small but I did have a few issues with the paper wanting to "wrinkle" and the bubbles were a little difficult to manage.
Let me just say, the bigger the project, the more difficult it is to manage.
I made two tables. I used one of Matt's old aviation sectionals for the first table.
It didn't go too badly, although I did learn that it is best to coat the board with the Modge Podge, place the map, then flip it over and trim the edges with a VERY sharp razor. Then I used a 4" foam roller so I wouldn't have brush strokes to coat the top of the map with more MP. Then I carefully lifted one half of the map, recoated the top of the board with more MP and then smoothed out the map. Then I did the other side. Then I applied another heavy coat of MP with the roller. That seemed to be the only way to get rid of all the wrinkles and bubbles.
I wanted to use a world map I had on hand for the other table. That was NOT happening. The paper wrinkled really badly and when I went to lift it to smooth it out, it literally shredded. I end up scraping the whole mess off with a putty knife.
What to do...what to do?
When I was up at Midtown working on my booth I noticed Debbie had used old sheet music to decorate a wall. She was kind enough to give me an entire book of sheet music! Awesomeness!
I used four pages and randomly overlapped them. Same method...but this time I had to coat beneath each piece as I laid it on the top. I still had to work out a few bubbles but found that sometimes it is easier to poke a tiny little hole in the middle of the bubble and work out the air with my finger.
The sheets were a little "stark" for my taste so I soaked them in coffee water for a bit to darken them ...just a little trick to give new copies an aged look!
Easily little project. One suggestion I would make is to spray the top with poly after the MP dries to give it a little more protection. I did this with my coasters and they have held up very well!
You got a little peek of my flowers in the picture of the table. So I will share my front flower pots while they are at their peak. We have had several weeks of amazing rain and cool temperatures. Right now, they look amazing...August might be another story!
For the past few years I have been collecting and planting in pots. This year I even when a step further and bought the "premixed" flower pots with mature plants. I still love gardening but every year it seems I have to do more and more to do less and less.
