Distressed Wooden Tray

I recently shared this project with Kelly’s readers over at Living Craftily Ever After when we swapped blogs. 

 

Just in case you weren’t able to make it over to her super cute blog to catch the whole tutorial, I thought I would post it again so all of our fabulous readers could see it (if you missed it, that is)!

With garage sale season in full swing, I’ve been really into scouting items for potential upcycles.  {I love the feeling of turning someone else’s junk into something amazing!}  Today I’m going to share my upcycled and VERY distressed wooden tray…love it!  Let’s start with a little before and after…

Honestly, nothing was really wrong with this wooden tray, it was just kind of blah and destined for an upcycle! (:

Yeah for color!  And can you tell that I’m in love with the distressed look?!  Love it and it adds a great pop of color to my coffee table!

Making your own is very simple and very inexpensive…my favorite kind of project! (:

Start by sanding off any chips or dings in the wood.  The corners of this tray were a little worn, so I just sanded off the flaking pieces.  I knew I was going to distress the heck out of this project and I wanted the brown to show through,so I tried to sand as little as possible.

Then, pick your color  I chose Marine Reef by Dutch Boy in flat.  {Flat looks best for projects you’re wanting to look old.}  This was my color of choice because I’m trying to pull together the aqua color of my curtains with the red I seem to choose to decorate EVERYTHING in my house with!  {I have a slight obsession with red: pillows, washer and dryer, mixer, rugs, comforter…and the list goes on.  My husband was actually shocked when our curtains showed up in a color other than red!}

Once the paint is dry, use a sanding block or sand paper to take off some of the new paint color to reveal the darker tone underneath.  You can do some slight distressing or major like me…either way, your project will look great!

Now on to the color tiled bottom.  I’ve been collecting paint chips for awhile now (I’m sorry Wal-Mart and Menards!) for a couple projects I have planned.  After cutting them into 2 1/4” squares, I began arranging them.  It took me some time to get the color arrangement just right, but I think I finally got it!

Now it’s time to Mod Podge.  I love, love, love Mod Podge…it’s amazing and SO easy to use!  Just apply a thin coat on the bottom of the tray and start placing your color chip tiles down.  Once all of your tiles are down, put another layer of Mod Podge down and let it dry.

The next step is optional.  I LOVE everything distressed so I decided to rough up my color tiles and even let some of the original wood show through in spots.  It look amazing before but I seem to have a need to distressed everything! (:  Anyone else have that obsession?!?!

After I distressed the bottom, I painted on another layer of Mod Podge to seal down all the roughed up edges. 

After letting this dry, it was time to proudly display my new wooden tray!