DIY Tray Refashion

I'm feeling quite crafty this past few weeks, so here's another DIY tutorial I want to share with you. I was looking for the perfect tray for quite some time now and finally found a beautiful white wooden tray in the exact size I had in mind. The only thing I really didn't like was the design (you can see it on the picture below). That's just not my style and didn't fit into the room as well. Then I found this cute mint-colored gift wrapping paper - and that's how the story begins ...

Material: A tray (either with an unloved design or plain), gift wrap paper slightly bigger than your tray, glue, a paint brush, a sharp cutter (yep, mine looks like a train), gel medium. If you use a plain wooden tray you might want to color it before you put on the wrapping paper. Mine was already nicely colored, so I skip this step.

[1] First, cut out a piece of the wrapping paper that's slightly larger than your tray. Make sure you leave two sides of the piece with the original edges of the paper. These are cut even and have a nice right angle between them. Leaving them will make your work much easier.

[2] Put the paper inside the tray. Make sure the two original edges fit perfectly, then press one of the other edges inside and create a crease. It's important that the crease fits exactly into the corners, or you will have uneven edges in the end. Then, take a sharp knife and cut along the crease. Repeat for the last edge. A sharp knife makes sure you get nice and even edges and your piece of paper will fit the tray exactly if you're done cutting.

[3] Take the paper out and start covering the  bottom of the tray with a thin layer of glue. And don't forget the corners! You can thin the glue with a little bit of water but  make sure you don't have any wet (like watery wet) spots or areas where the glue is too thick. Otherwise you're gift wrap will crinkle. And we don't want crinkles, right?

[4] That's how it should look like. Everything nicely covered. Well done!

 [5] Now put in your wrapping paper. Start with one of the shorter edges and slowly put it down while wiping out the air you might close in under your paper. Continue until the whole paper is bubble free. I have to admit, I put the paper down a little bit to fast and got quite a few crinkles (me and the paper). But everything went out just fine with step ...

[6] After the glue hardened apply a first coat of gel medium. The gel medium will be transparent and solid after it dried and will also make the paper waterproof. Yes! Applying some more layers of gel medium also reduces the crinkles the paper might have and it looks just so good after everything is dry!

I'm in love with my refashioned tray! The gel medium surface gives a shiny finish and seems to be very robust. I'm really happy I have done this!