Tray Cool

Happy Independence Day to those of you in the good ol’ You Ess of Eh.  On this auspicious day I thought I’d share with you something I did while hiding from the heat on Canada Day.

I buy a lot of things from thrift stores with a specific project in mind; however, lacking the time or a certain ingredient, these projects sometimes fall to the wayside.  Case in point: that mirror I used for Cait’s Victorian Toilet Paper mirror was supposed to go into something else.  I bought this serving tray with the idea of putting cork on the bottom and painting it with gold leaf stencils (back when that sort of thing was trendy).

I didn’t do it and so the tray has been sitting with my crafty crap for years.  But the Pie and I were talking about how awesome those Coffee Stirrer Wall Art doo-dads turned out and, having several coffee stirrers leftover still, I put two and two together and came up with this.

I wiped down the tray and gave it a quick once-over with black craft paint.

While it was drying I grabbed several handfuls of coffee stirrers and started painting them, too.  I wanted to work with a palette of various greens, mixed together a bit.

Then, with a bottle of Tacky glue and my trusty poultry shears, I started cutting the stirrers and gluing them to the surface of the tray.

This takes a while.  This takes a good long while.

I left it to completely dry overnight and then the next day gave it two coats of spray sealant in a satin finish (which will make the tray, if not washable, at least wipe-able). You’ll note I actually did the spraying outside, in a well-ventilated area, and not in my tightly sealed kitchen like I used to. There are benefits to having a backyard …

And that, as they say, is that.

I originally planned to give this to someone for Christmas, but the Pie seems to want to keep it, so I guess it will be his …