Tag: tray

Craft Projects

Feather tray

Jessica Smith

Since I actually like our coffee table now, I wanted to be sure we keep it looking nice. So it’s time we got used using coasters again… to help us with this, and to keep us a little more organized, I wanted to make a stylish tray to sit on our table to store our remotes (all three of them) and coasters.

I picked up an ugly little tray at the thrift store for $2.

OK, it’s not that bad… just SO not my style. A little too country for this girl.

Anyway, I sanded the tray down and took it outside to give it a coat of black spray paint.

Once the try was dry, I took it inside and Mod Podged a piece of black and white scrapbook paper to the bottom of the tray. It didn’t quite fit all of the way, so I decided to bring the black paint onto the paper to give the tray a more cohesive feel.

With that in mind, I took the Mod Podged tray (once it was dry, of course) back outside to strategically add a bit more black paint.

To finish off the tray, I added felt feet to the bottom and coated the tray with a sealer. I like the overall look of our new tray, but I think I eventually want to add something around the edges. I had a little bit of difficulty getting the edges to stay smooth and flat, which can be obvious depending on the angle.

Either way, it looks good on our table and will help us stay neat!

Craft Projects

Painted Pottery

Jessica Smith

I’ve been wanting to share this project with you for a while, but it was part of Brian’s anniversary gift so I had to keep it a secret.

About a month ago I went to a pottery painting shop with my neighbor — SO much fun. If you get the opportunity to do this you definitely should.

Pottery painting is pretty easy, as long as you have enough time to do so. Our trip took about four hours, maybe more. First you have to pick out  the piece you’d like to paint. I went with a basic white tray.

I had a hard time deciding what to paint, until I saw a Redskins tray. With that as my inspiration, I asked the woman at the pottery shop to print me out a piece of carbon paper with the Ravens logo. I centered it on my tray.

Once it was taped on my tray, I traced all of the lines in the logo so they would show up on the plate. ALL of the lines. This seemed to take forever.

Then, I painstakingly painted my Raven and my “Go Ravens” text. You have to go over your painting several times so this took a while. I almost regretted choosing such a detailed drawing, but in the end it was worth it.

The paint looks pretty thick and crusty (ew) before they glaze and fire it. But overall, not too bad!

So proud 🙂

AND, it looks ever better once it is finished. Check this out 😀

Brian was pretty impressed at his sweet tray.

 

Moral of this story… GO PAINT POTTERY!

Craft Projects

Beautified Bar Tray

Jessica Smith

Have you ever used EnviroTex Lite? I have, and it is awesome. A “pour on high gloss finish,” it makes objects it is poured on look like they covered in glass. Can you see where I’m going with this post? Good 🙂

I picked up an old silver tray at a thrift store (yes, me and my thrift stores… we are in love). Unlike most other trays I’ve seen at thrift stores, this one was long, skinny, rectangular and had wooden handles. I had to have it, especially for a mere $3.92, or something close to that. I thought I’d decoupage the tray, then I had a better idea — the tray would fit perfectly on our bar, so why not line it with bottle caps and pour the EnviroTex Lite on for a fun finish? Perfecto.

Before you ask any questions about the next part of my post, let me say that I don’t drink much beer at all (less than 10 a year, if I had to guess) and I am very sober writing this post. Glad we got that cleared up.

Next, I dug through my stash of bottle caps and picked out the ones I wanted to use in my tray. I have a lot of bottle caps. A lot. In fact, I have an entire fish bowl full of them. It’s impressive really, considering I hardly ever drink beer. But thanks to my kleptomania (yes, I steal bottle caps when I see people drinking a beer with a cool cap) and my friends and family who enjoy beer (that makes them sound like drunkards. They aren’t. No worries!), I had plenty to choose from. Even more impressive is that I was able to pick out 46 unique bottle caps from my collection. Holy cow, this tray was meant to be! Not to mention, the caps fit perfectly in the inset of the tray, leaving about 2 mm on top for the EnviroTex to dry and harden. Score!

Once I had my caps selected, I picked an order for the tray. I swapped things around a few times before I cam up with an arrangement I liked. I went with a color gradient, starting at white and ending with black.

With an arrangement I liked, I removed the caps and set them out in front of the tray, keeping everything in order.

Next, I had to remove the wood handles — those needed some black paint. I unscrewed them from the bottom of the tray.

After the handles were off, I cleaned the tray really well using silver polish. It was pretty grimy. Yuck-o.

Then it was time to secure my caps, which I am so glad I did (to most of them). I’ll skip ahead here for one sec — as I was pouring the EnviroTex onto my caps, the caps I didn’t secure well floated to the top. Whoops! I had to push them down to get out the air bubbles underneath so the EnviroTex could harden.

So secure my bottle caps I did two things: Hot glue and magnets. Some of the bottle caps I chose to use I’d already made into refrigerator magnets. I decided they’d look better in my tray than on my fridge, so I plopped them in and they clung tight to the metal tray. That was awesome because those suckers didn’t move later.

For the other caps with no magnets, I filled them with hot glue then stuck them onto the tray. If you are going to try this, definitely make sure they are stuck on really well or you’ll have some float-away caps, too.

Once all of my caps were secure, I mixed my EnviroTex together, following the directions on the box closely. When ready, I poured it over my caps.

Here’s the cruddy part about my project… each box of EnviroTex was 4 oz., which covers 1 square foot. I have no concept of 1 square foot, so I ordered two boxes thinking I’d only need one. I needed four.

To let the tray dry (for 72 hours… twice haha), I covered it so no dust would settle on top of the tray. My cupcake holder lid did the trick rather nicely.

Needless to say, this project took a little bit longer than I anticipated. It was also a lot more expensive than I ever dreamed it would be (I hate when that happens). But it turned out beautifully, and four layers of EnviroTex Lite and two freshly painted black handles later I had a beautiful tray.

 

 

It looks really nice on our bar, fitting perfectly on the top ledge. It’s a real statement piece and I am so pleased with how it turned out. The hubby loves it, too.

Next time around, I think I’ll use something that isn’t as deep as a bottle cap, that way I won’t need nearly as much EnviroTex as I did for this tray. I might preserve a coin collection!! How cool would that be?

Thanks for stopping by!