Upcycled Teal & Tape Table

I've been painting furniture for the last twenty five years, it is a great way to create bespoke furniture and to give an old piece of unwanted furniture a new lease of life.

A few years ago, I bought a very uninspiring little occasional table at the local dump for the bargain price of 50p.  I looked handmade and was thickly, and badly, painted in a dark varnish.  I liked the size and shape of the table and thought it would be useful somewhere around the house.  At only 50 pence, it was worth buying.

I spent a lot of time wondering what to do with the table.  It didn't actually look too out of place as it was, so I gave it a clean and used it as it was.  I thought about painting it cream and stencilling a design on the top and then thought about covering the entire table in decoupage, which I have done in the past on other furniture.

Having recently bought a new teal, brown and cream rug for my sitting room, I decided to paint the table teal.  Whilst I was pleased with the colour, I felt it needed something more.  I had read about Japanese Washi tape in craft magazines and had wanted to try it for a while, so that seemed the ideal solution.

Washi tape is a strong, durable paper like tape, similar to masking tape but is actually made from bamboo, hemp or tree bark.  It comes in a huge range of widths, colours and patterns so is perfect for craft projects.  It is readily available in craft shops and online.  I looked on eBay for mine as I wanted one that was a teal colour.  With postage it was a few pounds, so not very expensive.

I decided to run the tape around the top edge of the table and also down the legs.  It took about ten minutes to simply unpeel the end of the tape and then run in along each surface, smoothing it as I went.  You have to take some care as you can't really stick, peel off and stick again too many times as the tape with loose it's tack.  Once stuck, it seems to stay put though.

As the table is in constant use beside a sofa, with cups of tea always sitting on it, I needed to protect the paintwork as it is a water based paint.  If I wiped the top, the paint would come off.  To seal it, I rubbed on a few coats of Annie Sloan Soft Wax which is designed for the purpose.

I am really pleased with the transformation of my table.  It has gone from a dark, dull table to a bright, contemporary piece of furniture which will have a place in my home for a long time to come.  When I am bored of it, I can simply peel of the tape and paint it another colour.

Seaside Cushions on Wow Thank You

A week ago, the website Wow Thank You, which is a platform for UK artisans to sell their products, ran a poll on Facebook to see which seaside themed cushion was the voters' favourite.  I got an email to let me know that one of the four cushions chosen for the poll was mine.

Voters had a few days to cast their votes on A, B, C or D, with one voter being picked at random to receive the winning cushion as a gift from Wow Thank You.

I never expected my cushion to win and was amazed to get an email saying not only had my cushion topped the poll, it had won by a country mile!  The other three cushions received about 42 or 43 votes each in a surprising complete tie.  My cushion gained over 280 votes though, 70% of the whole vote.

I have to admit, I'm not sure winning the poll had much to do with my cushion sewing skills.  Having read some of the many comments left by voters, I think it was the appeal of the British beach hut that swayed the vote.

Faking It

Like most small businesses, I don't have a vast budget to hire professional products stylists, photographers and studios.  I am the stylist and photographer and my home ends up as the studio with product sets wherever is practical, usually in the kitchen as it has good light.

One issue I always had was that virtually all of the walls in my house are plain magnolia paint.  I happen to like it from a decor point of view but from a photographic backdrop point of view, it's not very inspiring.  I didn't really know how to resolve it though.

Earlier this year, I came across an online photography course aimed at crafters.  The first two weeks taught photography techniques, including lighting, exposure and focus, the second two week module concentrated in styling products.

To say the course transformed my product photos is an understatement.  I no longer use my camera in the auto mode and adjust the light and focus manually.  More importantly than that though, I learnt to fake it.  With the help of very simple props, you can create all sorts of different photographic scenarios to stage products to their fullest.  My favourite prop of all is rolls of wallpaper which can very simply be dropped down behind the product to create different backgrounds.  No more magnolia paint.  With so many different wallpapers available, you can create fake wooden panelling, bricks or use flowery designs.  Whatever fits with your products.

My kitchen is still my studio but you wouldn't know from the photos, they have been taken anywhere, even a professional studio.

If you are interested in the course I took, visit www.photocraft.org, I would highly recommend it.