Picture This... A Frame Turned Tray!

 

I could kick myself for not getting a before shot of this before I made it into a tray! I got this picture frame at an estate sale for $1. It was brown and dusty and dirty, with an ugly cardboard print of a duck. Nevertheless, it was just what I was looking for and just the right size for the tray that I had in mind to make out of it.

So here is how I made it...

I took out all the hardware, nails, glass, and backing and stripped it down to just the bare frame. I then painted the frame with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Old White.

I bought two drawer handles like this...

{a good manicure is recommended before hand-modeling for blogs ;P}

The handles are the kind that are not flat on the bottom, so I had to drill holes in the frame for the handles to lay flush on it.

Oops!

I drilled a hole through it!!!

The drill I have right now is not the easiest to use. It only has one speed - too fast! Thank goodness for wood putty! I filled the hole with it, sanded over it, painted it - good as new!

Next, I took some board that I bought at Lowes. You can get the board for pretty cheap and they will cut it to size for free for you if you don't have any tools to cut it yourself. And of course, I painted it with the chalk paint, glued it into the back of the frame with wood glue, nailed some small nails into it to reinforce it, and filled any cracks with wood putty.

Now for the fun part. For the graphics on the front, I picked out an image from the Graphics Fairy.

There are tons of ways to transfer these images, but the easiest and cheapest way for me was outlining its mirror image in pencil, then laying it down where I wanted it on the board and tracing over the back of it to get the graphite on the board.

I then went over it with fine tip Micron pen that you can get at art supply stores. Do not use a Sharpie. You won't be able to get it as exact and it can bleed a little. I once made the mistake of using a Sharpie for my very first graphic design project in college and got a "C" because of it! The next time, I used one of these pens and got an "A." Good tools make a HUGE difference in the quality of your work!

Thankfully, this graphic was simple, so this transfer method didn't take too long. If it weren't so simple, I would have spent some money to buy supplies to get it done quicker with one of the other transfer methods.

And of course, I distressed the frame by sanding it and applied Annie Sloan's clear wax. The last thing I did was attach the handles and I used Liquid Nails for that.

And there you have it! A picture frame tray! It started out ugly as dirt (because it was covered in dirt) and endured a few trials and tribulations, but I think it still turned out great! 

Link parties this is posted to ~