Compass Top End Table

I've had this red end table forever.  It was my grandmothers and is really meant to be covered with a cloth...because it's ugly.  But I decided to see what I could accomplish with it since.  Originally I wanted to do a clock face on the top of the table.  I can't remember why I didn't.  I decided to to a compass instead.

The first thing I did was strip the paint off the top.  I decided to just sand it off, rather than use stripper.  The latex paint was real rubbery and clogged up the sandpaper pretty quick.  It was still easier than stripping it.  I opted to just paint over the rest of the table.

I skipped a few steps in my photos.  I wound up painting the top with a black chalk paint from Home Depot.  I think the brand is called "Home Decor" or something like that.  I actually like the brand and it's way cheaper than Annie Sloan.  After that, I used Annie Sloan "Old Ochre" and just did a dry brush technique over the black.  It turned out kinda cool.  

For the rest of the table I used Annie Sloan "Duck Egg Blue".  I distressed it a lot so that the red would show through.  The overall effect is quite nautical...which worked with the compass motif. 

To do the compass, I just worked with what I had on hand, which wasn't a whole lot.  I'm sure there are better ways of doing this, but I didn't feel like spending any money on anything I didn't already have. I did a transfer method with charcoal.

First I printed out a compass image.  I used Illustrator to place the image on 9 separate artboards. This way it printed out on 8.5"X11" paper.  The image needed to be a mirror image in order for my technique to work. My black ink was running out so this printed brown.  That worked out rather well because it allowed me to see what I was doing when I moved onto the next step.

I used black charcoal and just drew right over the image.  It wasn't necessary to fill in all the dark areas since I could just do that with paint on the actual table.

I started my transfer with the center piece.  I places it right in the middle of the table and taped it face down.  Then I used the back end of a screw driver and just scribbled all over the whole sheet to transfer the charcoal.  From there, I placed each sheet down and did the same thing, being careful to match up the lines.  You can see the result is a little sketchy, but cool.  It rubbed off easily, so I obviously needed to go over the whole thing with black paint.

I did the little tick marks and numbers by hand.  I messed up here and there, but it's ok.

I dressed it up with a couple nautical-ish items....A coral and an hourglass of sand.