Changing Table Project

Hi!

So here's the 1st craft project I undertook for the nursery. It's a printing project I found in Lena Corwin's book Printing By Hand. I highly recommend this book to anyone with any desire to learn printmaking. The projects are really fun and stylish, and the instructions are very clear and easy to follow.  I was lucky enough to be able to fit in a silkscreening class with Lena before we moved out of Brooklyn, but this project is totally different from silkscreening and I was still able to follow it.  

So here's what I made:

And here's how I made it.  The bureau itself is from Ikea, I just did the paint treatment on the front drawer panels.  We are going to put a changing pad on top and use it for a changing table and bureau.  You can do this with any old bureau you have lying around.  The advantage of buying a new one was that I could do the treatment on the drawer panels before assembling the bureau, which made life a little easier.  

The 1st thing you have to do is pick a pattern you want to use.  You can really use any shape or shapes you want, as long as you don't mind cutting them all out of contact paper.  The more intricate you get, the longer it will take you.  Here's an image of me cutting out my pinwheels with an exacto-knife on top of a self healing exacto mat.

 

Once you have all of your shapes cut out of your contact paper (you need one for every place you want to remain white, or whatever background color you choose.  You can't reuse them) you then arrange them on your surface.  Leave the backing paper on until you have a layout that you are happy with.  Depending on what surface you are starting with you may want to rough it up a little with sandpaper so the paint will adhere better.  

Once you are happy with your layout, you then peel the backing off the contact paper stickers and stick them to your surface.

Now you are ready to paint.  I used Benjamin Moore Natura paint, which is the same paint we used on the stripes on the floor of the Bean Room, so they would match.  

You will probably need 2 coats.  I did.  And here's what the panels look like all painted.  As you can see you just paint right over the contact paper shapes.

Once the paint has dried completely you can peel off your contact paper shapes to reveal the backround coler that has been preserved underneath.  It is a little bit of a painstaking process, but the paint didn't peel off in the wrong places, which was a relief.

And here are all the panels with their stickers removed.

And that's that.  Here is the final product, complete with changing table top (from Land of Nod).  It's all ready and just waiting for a Bean!