Gold Cocktail Tray

Happy New Year! I won’t be posting tomorrow but in honor of tonight I thought I’d share a sweet little project I actually did in early fall.

I found a cheap and, may I say, ugly little metal tray in a local thrift store. When I saw it I had one of those, “aw it reminds me of my childhood” moments but having grown up in the 70’s those are usually followed by - “Ew, I don’t want that in my house!” But it was $1!!! So I bought it and figure I’d work out what to do with it at home. I do that WAY too much but this time it worked out.

I already had this stencil on hand so I decided to use it to help spruce up my little find.  I started by painting the tray an ivory color using wall paint we had left over from an old project. Once it was painted (it took 1 coat of primer and 2 coats of paint) I let it dry and cure overnight.  Then, I measured and marked for stripes then taped them out using painter’s tape.

I painted “gold” stripes using craft paint -  FolkArt Metallic Champagne,  making sure to keep it really smooth and bring the stripe over the edge of the rim.  I let the stripes dry overnight before centering the Fleur-de-lis stencil and tracing an outline to fill in. I filled it in with a mix of the colors but FolkArt Pure Gold is closest to the color I ended up with.

And, voila! Here she is . . .

I photographed under a light so the gold would really show. The Fleur-de-lis isn’t quite as orange-y as it looks in this pic, it’s a bit more of an antique gold.  Now to find a home for him. For now, I’ll top him with a few festive cocktails for tonight and wait for the clock to strike midnight!