As I mentioned before, I'm in a bit of a blue phase. Unfortunately, it seems that the rest of the decorating world is not. I have an insanely difficult time finding blue accessories for my living room! (Maybe I should take that as a sign...) But not to be deterred, I've resorted to making my own blue accent pieces.
Several months back, I purchased this tray for $5 from a garage sale:
It was originally red, and I painted it orange. (I had some pillows of a similar color I wanted to match.) But when I realized the pillows didn't match my living room, I was left with a tray that didn't look right, either.
After months of staring at it with disgust, I finally got around to redoing it. I had some leftover high-gloss royal blue paint from another project, which, on top of the orange (I was in no mood to prime), came out closer to navy. The high-gloss looks great, almost like a lacquered finish, which is all over the place these days.
For the middle of the tray, I bought some blue-and-white chevron scrapbooking paper. I wanted a pattern in the middle, but the size of my tray meant I'd have to buy a million sheets to achieve a seamless look if I chose something crazy like a floral. But chevron? It's just the same thing over and over and over again, making it super easy to match up and keep the flow of the pattern going.
To apply the paper, I used high-gloss Mod-Podge, and to avoid wrinkles, applied the bottom layer first, pressed down the paper, and waited several minutes for it to dry. Then I applied the top layer of gloss. Of course, a few wrinkles/bubbles are pretty much unavoidable; I fixed these by poking a sewing needle into the bubble, then pressing out the air and applying a little more Mod-Podge. Voila, a classy-looking tray for about $10!
