French Chocolat Graphic Table

Today I'm sharing an Ethan Allen occasional table I picked up for $10 at a resale shop.

The top was scratched and dinged up but overall it was in really good shape.  I stripped the top and lightly sanded the rest of the table then cleaned it with an all purpose cleaner.

I wanted to combine putting a French chocolat label from The Graphics Fairy and a lacy edging on the top so after stripping the top I spray painted the bottom with a textured, black paint so when I distressed it the texture would help age it.

I tried a couple of different transfer methods that did not work for me but I had good luck on the second try of the Elmer's glue & Mod Podge transfer method. It worked better the second time for me because I cut each line of the label out and laid them out one at a time.  Unfortunately, the last two lines I got a little crooked as it was hard to tell if they were even with the print facing down on the table. 

To do this method you take a piece of card stock and paint a thin coat of Elmer's glue over the entire paper.  Let this dry overnight.  Then you take the dry paper & after choosing your graphic print it onto the side with the dry glue on it.  Measure where you want your graphic to be on the table then apply  a thin coat of Mod Podge to the table and lay the graphic on it really burnishing & rubbing it without tearing the paper. The second time worked better for me because I really burnished it a lot then set a heavy object on top of it to keep it from curling up around the edges and bubbling up as it dried. Let it completely dry! No peeking!

After it is completely dry take a spray bottle of water and saturate the paper then gently peel or rub the paper off.  Some of it just lifted right off but other areas I had to rub gently. Viola! Your graphic is transferred.

I think it looked pretty good for my first time trying this technique just a little crooked. Another tip is to use just your black ink cartridge to print your graphic as you can see some of my print had red and pink in it. Carefully clean up the excess glue with a damp rag. Let dry.


I wanted the print to be a little clearer so I went over it with a fine point Sharpie.  After doing this the print wanted to smear because the Sharpie ink was not drying so I sprayed it with a matte, clear sealer which stopped the smearing. 

I then found a pretty piece of lace with a scalloped edge and cut out two strips to lay along the sides.   I then took a black satin spray paint and sprayed the lace being careful and not covering up the print in the center so that the black would kind of fade from dark at the edge to lighter in center.

I then moved the lace to the other two sides not worrying that the edges did not match as I would be distressing it later.

By the way you may save the pieces of lace and use them again on another project.  I really liked this look so pretty and crisp, black and white, but this wasn't the look I wanted so I applied a coat of clear soft wax and then started distressing with a 60 grit then medium grit sandpaper. I then went back and gave it another coat of wax mixing some dark & some clear wax.  I left the wax to dry but did not buff because I wanted an aged look.


And here's the finished product.

My opinion of this transfer method is that it is not as easy as other crafters make out you really have to burnish it and make sure it adheres to the wood.  Even then it was really light in areas and its hard to tell if you have it laying straight on your project. Other than that it was the best transfer method I have tried so far.


I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and are inspired to try a project like this yourself.  Happy painting.


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