stamped tabletop

Recently I finished updating my kitchen and one of the things I was really excited about updating was my breakfast table. We used to eat at this table all the time because it was convenient, but it is too small for a family of 5, so I figured we should just start eating at our dining room table like normal people. And because our kitchen is small, I wanted to make the table a little smaller so that it didn't take up so much room.

 It's the perfect size now. The kids eat there for breakfast and then Parker, Elly and I eat there for lunch.

What I did to make the table: My husband took the old table top off and cut the legs down to fit the new tabletop. We just bought a piece of pine from Home Depot, my husband routed the edges and I stained it. I painted the legs white and sanded them down to distress them a little. I spray painted the chairs.

To make the stamped tabletop, I followed this tutorial. On that tutorial is also how I found the image that I stamped on. I painted a few layers of stain and then applied the stamp. Now... she did a great tutorial, but it did not take only 10 minutes like she said. But I know how that goes, I say things take me only 10 minutes and it takes some people a lot longer than that. Anyway, go to her tutorial for how to make it, just remember these few things and it might help you:
1. I cut my image in to 4 parts so that I could make the image take up more of the table.
2. She uses wax paper and my printer did not like wax paper! So I used freezer paper and just cut it down to the size of a normal piece of paper. I made sure that the shiny size was the side being printed on.
3. I let the ink dry for like 10 seconds before placing it on the table so that it wasn't too wet and smudgy.
4. After it completely dried, like a day or so, I painted two more coats of stain on top of it.
Good luck! It really did take me 10 minutes to do the bottom half of the stamp... once I figured out those few things :)

I love this technique of stamping wood. I definitely will use this for some other projects.