Painted Piggy

And by painted piggy I don’t mean of the toe variety, but of the farm animal variety.  Put the phone down…stop calling the animal abuse hotline on me…I didn’t paint a real pig…I painted up a pig tray.  The tray was gifted to us via Colby’s mama…she…like Uncle Marcus also likes to hand down items to us.  But thankfully there was no sentimental value to the pig tray because farm animal decor just isn’t my thing.  Here’s the before:

And he was recently added to the entry decor scheme.

I dug the shape of the tray and it’s condition was impeccable but the color just wasn’t right.  So out came the primer:

Bye piggy, piggy, piggy.  And then brushed on two coats of glossy white paint (leftover trim paint…it’s Valspar’s Betsy’s Linen):

Of course me being me I couldn’t have just a plain white tray.  It’s just not my style unless it’s sporting about 12 pieces of flair.  Thus, I decided to line the tray.  And since I love working with what I have I “shopped” the craft room to find a couple of options.  One was a roll of cork that was leftover from making coasters at Christmas time.

Cork or fabric, cork or fabric?  Oh the important questions in life.  I wasn’t really leaning in either direction…aka…neither material was speaking to me.  So I took each for a little test drive in the entry to see if one would start whispering sweet nothings.  First up, the cork:

And then the fabric:

This is about when the fabric started screaming at me, “pick me, pick me”.  I loved how the turquoise dots in the fabric are picked up by the turquoise fisherman’s floats in the vase and the turquoise in the Domino book.  And the white in the fabric is not only found in the tray but also in the pots for the plants.  The fabric turned out to be the more harmonious choice.  It’s so purty!

I had originally purchased the fabric from Jo-Ann’s Fabrics to cover a bulletin board for our office but changed my mind on the project.  So I’m glad I found a use for the fabric elsewhere so it could fulfill its fabric destiny.  With the decision made I broke out my supplies, which included Mod Podge, a foam brush, pinking shears (I was going for a zig zag edge effect), and the fabric.

I first trimmed up the fabric, cutting it to almost the right size.

That’s my serious face which seems to come out while I’m rocking my Maine Business School tee and wielding scissors.  Then I ironed out all the wrinkles in the fabric piece before making my final trimming cuts.  Random side note warning here…this was the first time in this house that either Colby or I broke out the iron.  Sad.  What’s even sadder is that we didn’t know who’s iron the iron was (we had two when we moved in…one was Colby’s and one was mine…last year we donated one to salvation army).  Neither of us could recognize our own iron.  We’re definitely not an ironing household.  With the ironed fabric in place it was time to glue.

I carefully lined up and tacked one end of the fabric to the tray using the foam brush and the Mod Podge.

Then I worked my way down the tray gluing down the fabric and smoothing out an bubbles.  I finished the project with a couple coats of Mod Podge over the fabric for durability’s sake.

After the glue dried, I set the tray right back up in its previous configuration.

And was totally smitten and enamored with the outcome.  It was gorgeous!  And such the right decision for this space.  No gluer’s remorse going on here.

The liner was subtle enough to not attract too much attention but fun enough to add some pop.  It is almost like the mullet of trays…business on the outside and a party on the inside.  So this is how our entry is looking this days.

Did you notice the garden bird additions?  They’re the garden ornaments that my Grandma and Aunt Pat sent us for an Easter gift (read about that back here).

This isn’t their permanent home.  I have big plans for them out in the garden but alas…it’s still too cold and rainy here in Maine to garden so inside they stay.  They were previously living in the parlor but they kept crashing and scaring Goose while they were in there so they migrated to the entry.  See what I did there…with the punniness about the garden birds migrating…har har har!  I can’t end a blog post like that so how about one more picture of the entry setup.

Ahhhh…so pretty now with a tray that is harmonious with its surroundings.

Pssst…Enough about us, what have you all been doing lately?  Any new fun craft projects?  Or has anyone else had some success revamping an old tray?  Happy almost weekend everyone!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *