Sanibel Island Table

Chablis and I have been channeling our inner craftiness.  I am not very artistic, so calling it crafty is a stretch.  Last week a tenant moved out of one of the offices we manage.  They left behind a bunch of office equipment and supplies.  I don't know about you, but I love to go through stuff like that.  You never know what little treasures you might find.  One persons junk is another persons joy, right?

Anyway, one of the things they left behind was a nice little table.  Nice in terms of it being well built and sturdy.  However, it was old, outdated and a very unattractive shade of yellow.  Chablis snagged the table and said she wanted to paint it, so we tossed it into the back of my truck and took it home.  I had recently spray painted a shadow box with some periwinkle blue paint, so she grabbed that and sprayed the table.

Unfortunately, I didn't take a before photo of the table, because I didn't think it was going to turn into a project.   But after Chablis painted it, she said it might look cute with some photos decoupaged on top.  Before I knew it, she had pulled out her Sanibel Island folder and found a map of Sanibel and a Bailey-Matthews Museum Shell Chart.  Then she started going through our vacation photos and picked out a couple of Florida favorites.  So this is what we did....

First we sprayed the map and all the photos with some clear acrylic sealer to protect them and keep the colors from running....

Then we applied tacky glue to the back of the map, the shell chart and the photos, and placed them on the table.  Once the glue dried, we started to apply layers of Mod Podge completely over the top of the table and photos....

Chablis ended up applying 5 layers of Mod Podge....

Once the Mod Podge dried she applied a final layer of the clear acrylic sealer.  Here's the finished table....

I think it turned out so cute and tried to slide it into the front room next to my lazy boy chair, but she wasn't going for that and it's now in her bedroom.  How rude!

I'll also show you the shadow box I made.  A couple of weeks ago I found a brand new shadow box, still in it's original packaging, with the original price tag on it of $ 39.99.  It was listed at the garage sale for 5 bucks, so I snapped it up.  I sprayed it with that periwinkle blue paint, decorated the back board, hot glued some shells and sand into it and now I'm waiting for hubby to hang it up for me...

Hey, I told you crafty is a stretch for me but ya work with what ya got!