CREATIVE INPUT: A Writer's Table

My Son is a Writer

and fresh out of college and in badly needing a room at home make over.

so while the paint is drying - a beautiful shade of blue

I got my craft on while my son is building his new bed with under the bed storage for a immediate dresser. Brilliant.

I made a table fit for a writer!

I had a wooden plant stand that is going to be used as the table base - no prep work required! The I bought a base board that, pure luck, was a perfect fit

I found three different sizes of balsa wood letters at the craft store

and this is proving to be a very

inexpensive project too!

I arranged the letters out so they fit snugly on the table top

For fun I put my son's initials in the mix!

in the end I put my initials in as well. An artist always has to sign her work!

I then systematically picked up each letter, gave it a coat of glue, returned it to it's space.

not a bad project to do with a little summer TV

a little wine didn't hurt either!

But this is where I ran into a problem, only I didn't know until I started to stain my table top

Some of the letters are not balsa wood, but a bit thicker and denser. That's OK, but the real problem that was starting to show up was the glue

Where the glue oozed out

the stain was having a harder time covering over

After several coats, it doesn't really show - I know it's there though. So we are going to rock the more vintage look and just go with it.

I like this picture because the camera from the AC house fogged up in the humid outdoors! What would I do next time? I think applying glue all over the table top and randomly, swiftly putting the letters down would fix the problem and background would be the same stain and I wouldn't have oozy smudges. Spray adhesive? I think that would dry too quickly and attract dust and what not. Don't want that what not stuck to your table top!