I have to admit for a hundred times that I am addicted to changing things around my home -upcycling, recycling, repainting, upgrading. Giving items their second life. This is an example of a third life I gave a simple IKEA tray.
Originally it looked like this; I bought it for €5.
Then I painted it green with some black stencils. When I stopped liking it, I decided to do a little bit of decoupage (I used printouts of vintage papers).
When I decided to change it again, I had to remove the decoupage first. Then I cleaned it thoroughly and sandpapered every bit of tray. Clean everything with a damp cloth and let it dry.
Apply two coats of chalk paint. After the paint had dried, I sanded it with a very fine sandpaper. I also used steel wool at the end.
I decided to paint the side edges and the handles in a different colour. The blue masking tape helped to make the lines on the edges straight. When dried, I followed the same procedure – I treated it with some sandpaper and steel wool.
When everything was dry and clean, it was time to apply something to preserve the paint. You can choose a varnish; I decided to go for wax.
Wax is not water or heat resistant, but I just love the look of waxed chalk painted surfaces.
Following the instructions, I applied two layers of the wax. I let each of them dry, and polished with a soft dry cloth giving a tray a beautiful shine.
And now I have a lovely orange and yellow tray to serve my teas coffees and biscuits 🙂
