Animal-themed Trays

It’s been over a weeks since my last post, so it’s time for something new today! I’ve been busy with some other things last week however and sometimes it is easily forgotten that it actually takes a lot of time to come up with something new and to make it :). I don’t ever want to feel like I ‘háve to’ make something or that I háve to write a new blog… It’s still a hobby you know… So perhaps you should get a bit used to it: there is no way I could keep up with writing new posts at the speed I’ve been writing them the first few months!

But for now: here is a cute idea in case you come across some leftover trays!

A few weeks ago a friend brought me four cute wooden trays to decorate. My friend asked me to make a few animal-themed gifts for goodwill: the local animal shelter. You know how much I like inspirational quotes, and I’ve used some before to decorate my coffee table and my dining chairs. This time I used some funny animal quotes I came across at Pinterest. I have no idea who came up with them in the first place but it wasn’t me 🙂 Sorry about that: no credits where they are due, but no credits for me that’s for sure!

This is what the trays looked like at the time she brought them:

I had some leftover paint in the light and natural colours ‘lavender grey’ and ‘rain’ (‘rain’ is the same colour I’ve used for my dining table and chairs; you can see the edges of the table in the background), so I decided to paint two in each colour.

Sand and prime first of course!

Painted

Lavender grey, for the dog versions.

White-green (rain) for the cat versions.

Then I chose two quotes for transfer: I’ve made a version for cats and a version for dogs.

I’m not much of a dog-person I must say. I like them, yes, but I am much more comfortable around cats, even if they are mean :). So good we are all different!

I chose the quotes:

“I don’t need therapy. I have a cat / dog”

which is very, very true! A pet can definitely relief sorrow if you ask me. You can actually catch me having conversations with my cats from time to time. Don’t tell anyone 😉

“Whoever said that diamonds are a girl’s best friend, obviously never had a cat / dog”. The original quote stated “whoever said that diamonds are a girl’s best friend never owned a dog/cat. But it is commonly stated that you don’t own a cat: a cat has it’s own personnel, it isn’t owned. It does whatever it feels like doing anyway 🙂 And yes, I can tell: having two Siamese cats who can be very ‘present’ and annoying from time to time… But they are my babies. I adore them! I don’t know about dogs, but as I tend to think of animals as being persons, I didn’t like the statement that you own them. There, just replace the words.

I’ve printed the quotes as mirror image with my laser printer. If you want to transfer an image containing text using Art Medium (Dutch) or Mod Podge, always make sure you transfer a mirror image! Check out my tutorial here, if you haven’t seen it yet.

Quotes as mirror image

I covered the inside of the trays with Art Medium, pressed down the images into the wet surface and left them to dry. Then I wet the paper and rubbed it off. I’ve covered the surface with two extra layers of clear varnish to finish the pieces.

And there we have some cute trays!

I think they may look good on a coffee table, but you may just as well stick them to a wall as decoration!