tray chic!

Thursday night I met up with some friends for the local semi-annual Kindermarket consignment sale.  Mostly there are baby/kid items for sale but there is also a small section of home items.  Too be honest this year I was more excited to look around at the home items than I was the kiddie clothes!

I found a few home decor/seasonal items that I was excited about. One of them was this black tray that I snagged for $2.  I probably could have paid slightly less for something like this at Goodwill but since I had looked all summer for a flat wooden tray and had yet to see one I couldn’t pass it up.

At first the plan was to paint the tray an antique white and paint the center with chalkboard paint.  It would really make an awesome chalkboard tray because the middle is perfectly flat and the sides are raised just slightly.  But then I  had an intervention with myself and thought, “Really abs, do you NEED one more chalkboard tray/item in your house?”  Just this one time I decided to go a different route with the tray but don’t be surprised if sometime in the future it meets it’s destiny with chalkboard paint!!

I decided to go ahead and leave the tray in it’s original state.  It’s painted black and the edges are sanded ever so sightly.  I didn’t really care for the coffee cup decal in the middle so I covered up with some black and white scrapbooking paper I had on hand.  I love it when I can use things I already have, don’t you?!?  I cut the paper to fit inside the tray and was planning to tape it on the tray but it stayed just fine with out tape.

I liked where this tray was going but I still thought it could use a little something something to spice it up a little.  That’s when it hit me to add a little personalization. So off to Hob Lob where I picked up a small wooden “S” for $.99.

I painted the “S” with two coats of black spray paint {satin} I had on hand and then added it to the middle of my tray.  I wasn’t quite sure what to use to adhere the “S” to the tray because I wanted to be able to remove it in a jiffy if I wanted to create a different look.  I ended up using some double sided tape and so far the “S” has stayed put just fine.

Here’s the finished product!!

I am really happy with how my tray turned out and the best part is that it only cost me $3.00!!  The possibilities for this tray are pretty much endless.  You could switch out the paper and achieve a totally different look.  I already have some more plans for the tray as it gets closer to Halloween. I am going to have my eyes peeled for some letters to spell out the word “Boo”.

I’m linking up with Kimba at A soft place to land for DIY day today.