Brown Bag Counter Tops!

Brown Bag Counter Tops

No really! Haha. I sent this to my mom one night and she called me right away and was instantly hooked. Found this while browsing on pinterest of course. 🙂
It’s quite simple. You hate your counter tops but think it will be a fortune to re-do. WRONG!
Read on and see… 🙂
What you will need:

• A roll of contractor brown paper ( Found it @ Lowes near paint supplies for like 10 bucks)
• Elmer’s Glue (got a gallon at Lowes for 10 something)
• Sand paper (if you need it! if you already have a flat surface with no holes you will not need this)
• A bucket for mixing. (Used a butter dish but a bigger container may be easier- such as a paint tray)
• Something to stir with. (As you can see a butter knife worked fine- it’s elmers glue it comes off so easy)
• Stain of your choice. (Mom used regular stain that you buy at wal mart)

Start off my sanding the surface. (if you need to) Next, start tearing the brown paper into 4×6 pieces. Just guesstimate this, because it does not need to be uniformed in any way, and you want the paper to look torn. This is what they look like:

Once you have a pretty good pile going you want to crumble them up. It looks better no more crumbled up they are. Like this:

Mya was our helper :)- After you crumble up the paper and get them in a pile you want to make the solution. You want 1 part glue to 2 parts water.

Again, elmers glue comes right off so gloves and worrying about ruining something is not necessary.

Mix it up 🙂

Once you have it all mixed up you can start putting crumbled paper into the mixture.

Just squeeze out the excess glue and start placing them randomly on your surface. You will cover the surface just like you would a collage. The papers will overlap each other. This is the look you want. Once you run out of paper just tear some more up and make more mixture if you have to. Repeat this until your surface is covered…

Then let is dry over night!

Once it is dried over night you will then add your stain.

You will want something like this, but pick your own color.

( I do not have any step by step photos for this step because I was not there when mom was doing this, but just use a paint brush and stain as if your were painting your counter tops. Make sure to get a even coat through out the whole surface)

This is half stained half not. Major difference.

Once your stain is dry it is time to add a seal.

My parents found a sealant like this below at Lowe’s. (Not sure on the price)

They had to do 2 coats of this.

Once this is dry you will have nice new shinny counter tops!

Amazing huh?

BEFORE:

AFTER:

My mom is very pleased!

Let me know if you try this!

Thanks for reading!

-Olivia