Afternoon tea on a tray just for me….

I ordered the set of 3 nesting trays to work on this month, for the design team blog… and without any of us knowing, Lesley  and Pat, also ordered the trays this month… you may be in for a whole plethora of tray altering ideas in the next few weeks….  So here is my first one. It’s pretty straight forward, in that, its being used as a tea tray ( I suspect the others will have other uses when I am done with them).

Its not so straight forward when it comes to the paint effects used to give it its aged look… I work in a very random manner so its not always easy to explain how its done but I will do my best ( a lot of it happens by accident and I have to adapt to make it look deliberate lol)

Firstly, paint your base coat. I used a dark indigo acrylic. when its dry (or when you have blasted it silly with a heat gun) give it a coat of deco art weathered wood crackle medium.  now go away and SERIOUSLY, let this dry. (I admit it.. mine was still tacky and i have regrets hehe). so now you put on your top coat ( i used a soft pink)…. I want to say that as long as you absolutely follow the instructions, this crackle ALWAYS works. I love it….

Now Much as I loved it, it didnt feel shabby enough for me so i peeled some of the top coat off while it was still sort of rubbery (acrylic paint goes a bit rubbery just before its completely dry, especially over the crackle medium)… i did this using my finger and gently rubbing it off…. you could wait till its dry and sand it back but it gives a slightly different effect.

then when it was dry dry dry (your getting that it was dry right?) … I sanded it back along all the edges and smoothed it all down.then i took my gingerbread chalk ink along the edges to darken and age.

next get two sheets of “tea for two” paper. (graphic 45: reflections range”). I wanted to make the paper blend a bit more with my paint colours so i used water colour pencils to gently add some pink touches and then some white highlighted bits. I cut it to size and glued it down. then i cut out some cups and cutlery from the second sheet and glued them in to place…

I also cut out some sections of the plates, for the outside of the tray.. give your tray a coat or two of sealer or varnish… and there you have it. (in the photo above, the glossy look on the tray base is actually a sheet of heat resistant acetate. (easy cleaned if i dribble my tea lol). i took it out for most of the photos as you get camera glare and reflections with it in.

Supplies used from Calico crafts:

Set of wood trays – I used the large one for this project

DecoArt Americana Acrylic paints – your choice of colours

DecoArt Weathered Wood Crackle Medium

Graphic 45 scrapbook paper Tea for Two

Versamagic Dew Drop – Gingerbread Chalk Ink

Heat Resistant Acetate

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