Painted Grain Sack Tray and an Experiment with Freezer Paper Image Transfer

Oh my gosh.

I have been going through total furniture painting withdrawal.  The warm weather cannot come soon enough.  I need to get back in the garage and breathe new life into some worn and weathered pieces that have been waiting for me since last fall.

Since reliable outdoor painting weather in Chicago is still pretty far away, however, I have to settle for smaller projects that can be accomplished indoors.  Case in point, a plain wooden tray that I painted with a grain sack motif – a motif I’ve envisioned using on a coffee table that’s waiting for me in the garage.  I needed a place to corral remote controls and coasters in the living room and I figured this tray would do the trick.

This was the perfect chance to test out painting grain sack stripes and to attempt a freezer paper image transfer technique, which is something I’ve wanted to try for awhile now.  It turned out better than I expected, so naturally I loooove it.  (Clearly my son loves it too.  Or maybe he just loves stealing the tea light out of the bird candle holder I’ve temporarily placed in the tray so that it looks more “interesting” in the photo.)

• Decorative Tray (Michaels sells plain wooden trays just like the one I used)
• Acrylic paint in colors of your choice
• Paint Brush
• Painters tape
• Sealer (I used spray polyurethane)
• Spray adhesive (for image transfer)
• Freezer paper (for image transfer)
• Inkjet printer (for image transfer)

1.  First, I lightly sanded my plain tray.

2.  Next, I painted the tray all over in a creamy white.

3.  Once the paint dried, I taped out my grain sack design on the inside of the tray and along the top of the handles.  I made sure to press down along the edges of the tape so that the paint wouldn’t bleed through.

4.  I then painted two coats of green paint in the appropriate areas.  Once the paint was almost dry (not totally dry), I removed the tape.  I then taped along the outside and continued the process of painting the stripes on the exterior handles.  Once that paint was almost dry, I also removed that tape.

5.  Next, I lightly sanded over the entire tray (interior and exterior), to remove some of the color and to give the tray a slightly worn look.  It really softened the color in a way that I like.

6.  The fun part started here . . . the image transfer process!  I downloaded a free image from The Graphics Fairy (the most AMAZING resource for crafters and DIY’ers), and studied these fantastic tutorials from Our Prairie Home and Kammy’s Korner on how to do an image transfer to wood with freezer paper.  Because I was basically holding my breath the entire time, I could not take any pictures of how I did this, but if you’re curious on how to do your own image transfer, check out these ladies’ blogs.  Anyway, mine isn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it looks good enough to me for a first time, so I’ll take it!

7.  Finally, I sprayed the entire tray with two coats of polyurethane.  I decided not to brush it on because I wasn’t sure if that would smudge the image in any way.  I think the spray poly was the safest bet.

I love my newest clutter container!  And I am so happy that I got a chance to try freezer paper image transfer and I cannot wait to try it again (and hopefully perfect it), on some furniture this summer!

What are you anxiously awaiting to do once the nice weather reappears?

– Bre

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