Tray Re-do

I saw this tray made out of a cupboard door from the Crafty Nest, and I fell in LOVE! I'm talking serious drooling love. Isn't it gorgeous??

So, I've actually been looking for an old cupboard door every time I go to the thrift store, just so I could (try to) make something similar to this. I hadn't found one, but I did eventually find a tray that I really liked at the thrift store for just $3, and it was good sized and very sturdy, so I figured it would do the job.

My sister in law's birthday is coming up, so I thought I'd make it for her. Especially because I loved the black and white so much from the Crafty Nest's tray, and that is SO my SIL's style. I wanted to totally copy her design, like trace it from my computer screen!.. but I reasoned a little bit with myself, and thought I could just use some of her same elements, and do my own design.

Mine is not half as gorgeous as hers, but it turned out ok. I'm kinda sad that since mine wasn't out of a door, I couldn't add the awesome black handles to it. Oh well, some day.

Anyways, here's the before and after pics, enjoy!

I don't think my SIL reads this blog, but just in case.. Happy early Birthday, Jami!

If anyone wants to know, I just used white spray paint for the tray and then black acrylic craft paint, and a paint brush for the design!

I'm participating in Dalomba Days Goodwill Goodies and also Poppies at Play Creative Cats!

To explain how I got my design on the tray:

I drew my design first on paper, and then I colored the back of the paper with chalk so that when I traced it over my tray, it would show my design in chalk on the tray.. but it also smudged blue chalk everywhere I didn't want chalk either! So I tried wiping it all off with a damp paper towel, but couldn't get it all off. It still prominently had made my design on the tray, along with lots of blue smudge.. so I traced the chalk design with a black sharpie. Then, I went at it again with my white spray paint to make sure I got all the light blue smudginess that was left, covered up. It covered up all the blue, leaving a faint gray line where I had used the black sharpie on my original design. Then, I just used my paint and brush over that line. That was way more steps than I was planning on, but it worked. Does anyone else have any good ways of transferring a sketch, if you don't have transfer paper?? I'd love your advice, thanks.

You may have to enlarge that pic to see my lines, but that's basically how it looked before I used my black paint to trace over the whitepaint-covered-sharpie-covered-chalk design.. whew.