DIY Wooden Tray

I've been browsing Pinterest a lot lately for ideas about home decor, and this tray caught my eye:

It's so pretty, and it looked fairly easy to make, so I took a trip to Jo-Ann Crafts for supplies. Sadly I wasn't able to find any decorative paper long enough for the tray I found, but I also needed some assorted paints, so I decided I would just paint a tray instead!

I've never been good at crafting things, and I had an middle school art teacher who was shocked at my inability to complete even the easiest of projects, but the pictures on Pinterest just make things look so easy. That's how they draw you in....

First, I primed the tray with Martha Stewart Gesso Primer. I have no idea if this was necessary or not, but it seemed like a good idea at the time and I liked the way the primer looked, although I only applied one coat.

Look how much I'm getting done!

I was considering making zig-zag stripes, but I decided it would be simpler to stick with horizontal stripes for my first project. I taped off the part where I would put stripes and painted the rest blue. I waited for it to dry, taped off the blue parts and painted the green stripes.

The green stripes look yellow/green, but they're not yellow.

It was about this time that my good friend Courtney texted and asked if I wanted to hang out. Courtney is awesome at all sorts of artsy things, so I invited her over and she brought some of her own supplies. We watched a terribly frightening movie and three episodes of Doctor Who, feasted on pizza, and she decorated a mug with rhinestones while I completed my tray.

It's practically a battle zone.

Again, the stripes look yellow...but they're not.

See? It's green. Not yellow.

I used the Martha Stewart pearl green acrylic paint for the exterior/interior walls and white acrylic paint to trim the top. I had been using regular painter's tape until this point, but switched to this really tiny tape (again, Martha Stewart) for the trim.

Once all that was said and done, I removed the tape and did some touch-ups.

I think the whole thing turned out extremely well. Not perfect, exactly, but way better than I could have hoped.

I'm going to use the tray for craft shows to display my handmade bath & beauty products, but in the meantime it's going to sit on the little tables in the living room, and maybe now I won't constantly lose the remotes.

Maybe.