My Second Favorite Animal is a Songbird… Painting this Table Shows It
My 7 year old granddaughter always asks me what my favorite animal is… I always answer with ‘dog’. But now, she’s starting asking me what my ‘second’ favorite animal is since she knows ‘dog’ is my ‘first’. I love a lot of animals, elephants are for sure way up at the top of my list, but they don’t live around me, so picking an animal that is influencing my daily life, I think I’d have to say my ‘second’ favorite is/are songbirds.
I love the security of the promise Jesus tells us in Matthew 6: 26 “Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?” (Love that verse!)
So when I decided to paint a wicker side table, that has a wooden round top, I decided that an American Redstart songbird would be the design in the center.
I’ve had this table for several years. (Probably close to 20 years!) I originally got it from Pier 1 on clearance for around $15. I don’t have any before pics, but the bamboo base was finished in a greenish stain, and the round top was natural brown stain with a green ivy border around the perimeter. It was pretty neutral and served me well for many years, but needed a facelift.
Over the years, this table has been in many different rooms, like the living room, the family room, and the sunroom. But now it sits between these two armless chairs in the piano/library room of ‘Our House’.
Since I didn’t take pics while I was doing the actual painting on this, I’ll quickly tell you the steps I did:
- Spray painted the base… several coats. (That raw wicker really sucks up the paint!)
- Primed the entire round top including edge.
- Painted entire round top and edge the cream color 2 coats, and let dry.
- Using a thumbtack in the center of the top with string attached to it, I made the circles around the tabletop where I wanted the pattern.
- Painted the gold and blue circles, 2 coats over the cream… (by having the cream on the whole table top if my gold or blue wasn’t perfect, the cream color underneath would give me the ‘painting grace’ I frequently talk about).
6. Sketch, then paint the branch and bird.
7. After everything is dry, I then went back with a ‘paint marker’ and did the black lines, leaf patterns and outlined the bird and branch etc. (gotta love that tool!)
8. Then to soften the whole look, I rubbed on some gel stain.
9. And finally, I finished with a couple coats of water based poly over the whole thing.
This was a really fun project to ‘putz’ on, and now this piece is refreshed for another 20 years and sports my ‘second favorite animal’ on it!
Enter your email address: Delivered by FeedBurner
Follow My Blog!
Yay! I was featured:
I’m linking up here:
Tuesday Link Parties
Wednesday Link Parties
Thursday Link Parties
Friday Link Parties
Saturday Link Parties
Sunday Link Parties
Monday Link Parties
http://betweennapsontheporch.net/diy-drop-cloth-curtains-add-privacy-and-sun-control-to-porches-the-182nd-metamorphosis-monday/
Posted on July 5, 2012, in DIY - Crafts - Floral, Furniture, Our House, Paint Treatments, Piano Room, Re-purposing, Uncategorized and tagged birds, circle, decorate with a little bit, DecorateWithaLittleBit, library, Pier 1, table, wicker. Bookmark the permalink. 24 Comments.
This is soooo beautiful! Love the colors, the bird art, and the the painted leaves! Everything, really
Thank you Karen!
Absolutely love this table. I never thought I’d be able to get such a professional look on a project like this. But your instructions were simple and showed how you achieved the look. Very impressive!
This table is very special! That was an inspired idea to paint the songbird – I love the colors – top and bottom! Definitely a conversation piece! I do appreciate you sharing with Home and Garden Thursday,
Kathy
I love this table. Thanks for sharing it. I found your site through Savvy Southern Style. It is one of my favorite sites. If you like recipes you may be interested in checking out my site Recipe for Life at deborah-bateman.blogspot.com
Have a blessed day,
Deborah H. Bateman-Author
You did an absolutely beautiful job. I will be featuring it tonight at my Sizzle into Summer party that opens at 8pm EST. Please stop by and pick up an I’ve Been Featured button. Thanks.
Great job! I too love a Songbird, any bird. You are a talented painted! ~CJ
This is just darling!
Stunning!
Have a great Sunday
Linda
Love it!
What a lovely, creative design! Great choice of colors too. Kudos!
You are way more courageous than I am, and with a good reason… you are awesome!!! This is such a great table… I followed your link and am also participating at the Whipperberry – Friday Flair Link Party… check out my post here: http://quilling.blogspot.com/2012/07/fabulous-friday-share-memories-freebies.html
Hugs, Antonella
You are always so busy! I don’t know how you do it all!
my kids are grown up…
This table totally caught my eye out of 125 links that I was browsing. Love it! You’ve got me thinking what old piece could I transform? i did a small table last year as a mosaic with broken dishes, but paint would be something totally different for my home. So creative and well executed.
Really like how your table turned out. Very nice. I need to get me one of those black paint pens.
This table is really awesome, is a total piece of art, you have done a great job, I love it, the bird is beautiful, and it looks well handpainted, hand crafted, all done by yourself, very pretty. Congratulations.
First, I love anything with a bird on it. Second, I love all the small details you added to make it extra-special! Came over from Primp.
Distressed Donna Down Home
That is just so cool.
Really well done and so whimsical.
Wow, you’re quite the artist! Very nice.
Great idea for an older table…really refreshes it up!
I love the table. I like the base as well as the top.
Cynthia
Pingback: » Our House: Main Porch, it’s the Details that Make it Special! decoratewithalittlebit