Grass Green Table with Crackle Finish

Hi everyone.  Sorry to have been MIA.  Christmas was wonderful, but then came sick kiddos and tax season.  So, I haven’t had a chance to blog in a bit.  I’ve been poking around blog land checking some of your projects out and drooling… And I’ve done a few of my own.  

Since Emerald Green has been named the Pantone color of the year for 2013, I thought I’d start painting a little more green.
 

Now, this isn’t exactly Emerald.  It’s what I’ll call a “grass green”. But Spring is on it’s way, and from the color palettes I’ve seen, all greens are game in this Pantone color of the year phenomenon.

There is quite a story to this little curvy end table.  I’ll try to make it short and sweet, but I want to tell you about the troubles and triumphs in case you ever encounter such things when buying thrift store items.

I don’t have a picture of this cute little table before I started working on it.  I had a good bit of scuffing and a few knicks on the top and a pretty deep scratch on the top left corner.  So I sanded and sanded until I felt I shouldn’t sand anymore.  I can’t tell you how I knew when to stop.  I just knew.  That’s just one of those things you have to do by trial and error.  This piece had some type of inlaid design on top, so I wasn’t 100% sure what was underneath.  Then I filled any scratches or gaps with wood filler and let it dry.

After the wood filler dried.  I lightly sanded that part with 220 sandpaper to make it smooth to the touch.  It felt totally smooth.  So, I took my homemade “grass green” chalk paint and went to town painting this little beauty.


As it dried, I saw this:

                                                                      (sorry for the glare- cell phone picture)



Ugghh… the green was so pretty, but the scratch was so obvious!  It reminded me of that L- shaped scratch on Mrs. Leefolt’s dining room table in “The Help”.  It IS one of my favorite books/movies ever!  I even wrote a post about it – remember?  Well, I didn’t want to think of Mrs. Leefolt when I looked at my beautiful table! 

So, I wracked my brain for a solution.  And Tip Junkie came to the rescue.  I used this tutorial featured on Tip Junkie to create a crackle finish using Elmer's glue. 

I bravely brushed on a coat of watered down Elmer's School glue over my freshly painted grass green table top.  It was SCARY!  

 

While the glue was still tacky, I painted another coat of my grass green homemade chalk paint over it.  Again, scary.



But after it dried, it was a wonderful thing!  It hid Mrs. Leefolt’s scratch and those few knicks perfectly!

  

I left the table overnight to be sure everything was totally dry.  I then sanded just the edges of the table and the base, drawers, and legs as usual.  I waxed them with Annie Sloan's clear wax to seal the finish.


It turned out beautiful, and no one had to know about the scratch.  Hopefully, they’ll just think I’m uber-creative. Ha!

  

Sometimes the greatest projects come from a little trial and error!
 


Linking up at these fabulous parties:
Inspiration Gallery Link Party, Furniture Feature Friday at Miss Mustard Seed, 
Flaunt it Friday at Chic on a Shoestring   Weekend Bloggy Reading Linkup