Tray rehab

Chris and I have had this brown tray for years. I thought it belonged to his family or something because I couldn't remember where the tray had originally come from. 

It was a fine tray, but there was a part of me that really wanted to modernize it. I would see trays in catalogs and think, "That's such a cute tray!" But, see I already had a tray, and so I didn't buy a new one. Again it was fine. Just brown. Finally one day I asked Chris about it. "It was a hand-me-down from your folks," he said. 

Perfect! I then knew I was free to mess it up in the hopes of making it better. First was a coat of red spray paint. 

I painted over the gold metal edges too. 

Yeah for pretty and red!

 

But I knew it needed something more. So I started searching for inspiration, and I found Martha Stewart's tray here. I immediately went to Hobby Lobby looking for cork shelf paper and a punch. But there was no cork shelf paper. I figured I could improvise with a roll of cork and double-sided adhesive paper. I could punch the shape in the cork and the adhesive paper and then put them together on the tray. Perfect. 

However, when I got home, I realized my punch (which was not a Martha Stewart brand, but I liked the shape better.) wasn't tall enough to accommodate the roll of cork. So I went to Michael's thinking (1. it was closer) and 2. they would have different punches. 

Michael's didn't have cork shelf paper, but I did buy two different brands of punches. One of them was a Martha Stewart Punch All Over The Page punch. Neither was strong enough to punch through the cork. 

At this point, I got on Amazon.com to find the cork shelf liner. I found it and ordered it. When it arrived, I immediately tried my two punches on it. Neither would cut through it!!

Back to Michael's to return the two punches. I took a square of the cork shelf liner with me, and I decided I would find the exact Martha Stewart punch shown, and test it before buying it. I usually don't promote using products before you buy them, but this "easy" project was getting out of control. 

Thankfully, the punch I chose worked!! And it was on clearance!!

Here's the cute shape I chose:

I first thought I would do lines of the flowers, but it just didn't look right. I played around with it for a bit and decided on this: 

 Here's the finished tray with Grace's nose in the pic. 

The theory is that the cork will absorb any sweating and condensation from drinks we put on the tray.

And, the cork makes it a non-slip surface. 

After all of that time and effort, I do think it turned out pretty cute. The lesson from this is to purchase exactly the products your inspiration project used. Thanks, Martha.