Weekend Project-Hand Painted Picnic Table

Looking for a fun DIY weekend project?  Why not try a DIY Hand Painted Picnic Table…

I have this picnic table.  It’s been around for years and I’ve never done anything with it.  It’s plain, boring and needs some lovin’ badly.  See how sad it is?  We never use it and just sits there all sad and lonely, but not anymore!

But, fortunately for my picnic table, I woke up on Saturday morning with a plan.  I decided to paint it.  I felt creative and really wanted something different.  So I scoured the internet for inspiration and this is the result!  Isn’t is pretty?  I can’t believe we did it.  With tons of help from Emily we painted this!  We’re not quite finished yet thanks to the much needed rain.  But this gives you the idea of where we’re headed. 

Here’s how we did it:

First we sanded and wiped it down.  Then we painted the top white and it took two coats.  Probably should have primed it first, but oh, well!  I cut out two petal templates, one for each flower.  One has a wide petal and the other one is skinny.  I traced a circle from a lid for the centers and just moved the petal template around the center and traced.  Then painted with Sea Breeze from Home Depot as as the base of the flowers.  Can you see the zebra design on the bench?  Each bench will have zebra and more of the swirls and leaves.

The paint is outdoor paint from Home Depot in Brilliant Sea, black and white.  There are also tiny touches of hot pink.  The blues are variations of the Brilliant Sea with white mixed in.  The legs will be Brilliant Sea, also.

For the big flower:  I mixed two more shades of blue using the Brilliant Sea and white.  One medium shade and the other one really pale blue.  I worked from the center of each petal out to the edge starting with the Brilliant Sea, then the medium shade and then the pale blue and then a little white.  I just kept blending and layer.  I would add a little darker color here and little lighter there.  Last using black I added the center and the markings.

For the skinny flower:  The base color is Brilliant Sea. Emily painted zebra using black for the center which is outlined in hot pink.   We then painted the black in the petals.  After the black dried, we used the same technique with the blue. Except this time, we went light to dark.  Then trimmed the edges with the Brilliant Sea again.  The highlights are the medium shade.

The leaves and swirls I drew freehand with a pencil and filled in with black and used various shades of the blue to highlight.  The leaf has hot pink dots!  We still have to finish the legs and the benches. But that won’t take long. Then do whatever touches are needed as I’m a messy painter and then top it off with a glossy, shiny spray.

I can’t wait to get this finished!  Emily is looking forward to doing school at the “new” picnic table.  I want to grill out and eat by mason jar candle light.   I’ll post pics when it’s all finished.  One more thing off the checklist before Becca’s graduation party!  Did you have any weekend projects?  I’d love to hear about them!