Refinishing Attempt: Take 1

I finally decided to try my hand at finishing furniture. This may not have been the best project for 100 degree weather, but what can I say, I'm a rebel...a very sweaty rebel, but a rebel nonetheless!

Ok, so I found this $5 drawer at Goodwill, and my parents very graciously picked up the tab. I'm not sure why I wanted it so much; there's nothing incredibly special about it. It's just a little two-drawer-table-thingy. But, for some reason, I really, really wanted it:

First, I sanded it. This was the part that had really kept me from ever trying to re-finish a piece of furniture. But, my mom said all I really needed to do with this was to "rough it up" a bit so the paint had something to stick to. Ok, I could do that; next, I applied a spray-paint primer and then slathered on some bright yellow paint:

So far, so good. I wanted it to have a bit more character, though, so I started taping off some "Chevron"-style stripes:

 Then I painted the stripes...

...then very, very carefully peeled off the masking tape...and voila!:

Next came the fun but terrifying part: distressing. I had never done this before, so I went at it like I go after everything else: ALL OUT. I attacked that 2-drawer table with sandpaper and it turned out like this:

I took the two drawers out, spray-painted them white, and tried to distress them the best I could. They seemed to be sort of distress-proof, however. Anyway, here's the final product:

I'm pretty proud of my first piece. Of course, it didn't turn out exactly how I had envisioned it--I had wanted more of a "sun-shine-y" yellow than the mustard-y yellow it turned out to be--but it really inspired me to keep going and try again!

If you have experience with furniture refinishing, do you have any tips or tricks? I'd love all the help I can get!

Happy 4th, everyone :)