“Thrift Store Makeover: Trays”

I found these wooden trays at a thrift store here in Ottawa several weeks ago. Slowly, but surely I’ve been working on them.  I had seen lots of tray DIYs on Pinterest giving me the inspiration to revamp them. There were so many ideas that it was hard to choose.  So I decided to go with the flow instead.

For the blue tray I had to sand it down first because there was a layer of varnish on it.  So I used a handheld electric sander to make quick work of that task.  Then I primed the tray with some gesso.  It took a few coats to get it covered entirely.  The tray initially had this cool inlay design that I decided to keep for the final product.  I carefully painted the diamonds light green, touching up the edges along the way. 

Of course I just had to add some flash to this project.  I took some foil glue and painted some of the squares with it and left it to dry.  After about 15 minutes it was tacky enough for me to lay down the foils.  I found some holo foil from Heidi Swapp some time ago that was perfect for this tray.  All you have to do is press it down onto the tacky foil glue, rub and remove. I went over it a few times to cover the squares with as much holo as I could.  Then I sealed the whole tray with a coat of varnish.

As for the pink tray I didn’t know what I wanted to do.  When I found it at the thrift store it had been decorated with a cutesy heart theme.  I wanted to kick it up a notch and make it more modern.  This one didn’t need any sanding, so I started right away with a few coats of gesso.  For some reason I was really feeling the pastel colours for these trays.  I chose pale pink to go with the heart cutouts on the handles.  I spent some time debating what I wanted to do next.  I wanted to add some collage elements but also holo.  So I used some of this plastic material that has an iridescent quality to it.  I used a hole punch to make the shapes and glued it all down with Mod Podge.  I didn’t want to make a certain design, so I kept it abstract.  I finished this tray off with a coat of varnish as well.