From blah to WOWSA! I Love Upcycling

Do you have an ugly tea tray in your house? PERFECT! This project is for you.

It began with an ugly tea tray. As you may have read in this post, we have afternoon tea. But I had no tea tray. Well. I HAD one. But it was under a glutenous toaster that I let my daughter use, haphazardly failing at it’s job to contain glutenous crumbs. Needless to say, the toaster was banished, but the tray- laden with gluten- was left. What to do, what to do.

I scrubbed it, but you know how wood and plastic is- it sucks in the gluten. You can’t get it out. I wanted to reuse the tray so badly, and aside from practically BEING bread, it was hideous. So hideous, in fact, that I purposely neglected to take a before picture because I was embarrassed that I actually owned something so 80′s-country-kitchenesque.

Well thank God that I took an acrylics class in college, because guess what seals a material? ACRYLIC PAINT! Especially high gloss. I mentioned in the upcycled jar post that I have high quality acrylic that I buy at an arts and crafts store. I don’t encourage cheap paint for this project, since tea trays are scratched by dishes and use, and sometimes have to be wiped down.

I decided to paint it all over except the bottom. Then I was stuck and abandoned it for weeks. I needed to cover it with something. I remembered that I had some large sheets of artisan paper stashed away, and by tracing the bottom of the tray, I cut a piece that fit down inside it. I think any decorative paper would work.

The next step was easy- I painted the inside with Modge Podge, laid the paper down, and then Modge Podged over it.

And last, I painted the edges with gold paint to match. Bam. Tea tray.

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