Sprout 5: Serving Trays

So a few weeks back I posted about all my scores at Page One, the local thrift shop.  While one of the items I picked up was old picture frames, I got 10 of them. This may be a bit psychotic but I needed to fill up two trash bags ($5.25 including tax) with stuff for the projects I was brain storming.  Now no normal person need two trash bags full of stuff for DIY projects, but I was so excited about my “crafting” goals that I managed to fill them to the point that you had to force them closed.  As I posted before my total per item purchased that day was $.07, yes SEVEN CENTS.   

Back to the frames about half of them had images in them, and they were pretty tacky.  I knew I wanted to make serving trays so I focused on ones that were pretty hefty and had different shapes. The one on the right is the one used for this project, pretty tacky huh.  Reminds me of 1989.

I had these drawer pulls from a dresser I had refinished a few years ago and thought they would make perfect handles.  Although I’m not a fan of the glossy gold, so I used a cream colored paint to mute them down a bit.

For the inside I got a cute skirt, it is a size 26 and has about 3 yards of cute damask fabric and an awesome pair of vintage pants (each also part of my bags at Page One). But for this project I decided to go with a fabric left over from a sheet set I had used to make the shower curtain in our guest bathroom. 

I was disappointed that the back still looked like a picture frame so I decided to paint it. Originally I was going to do all brown, but then I decided to make a “reversible” serving tray, since the front was kind of springy I decided to paint something a bit more fall.   After much debating I went with a simple sketch of leaves similar to one I had painted for my bedroom years ago.  I liked the back so much that I debated not putting the handles on and just hanging it as Art. It doesn’t quite match my décor and I although I thought of a few people I could give it too, I decided to stick with the plan and make a serving tray. 

The "back" side!

The final project sitting on my ottoman!