Several years ago when we were still in our
former home in California I began
collecting silver trays.
I have several small ones and other larger ones of various sizes
some with handles and others without
that I have shared in different displays over the years.
Last week I found four silver serving trays down
at an upscale thriftshop called
Twice As Nice
in Denton, Texas…
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| Having fun playing with the focus and light! 😉 |
Twice As Nice is a beautiful thriftshop carrying gently used
shoes and sandals, Brighton belts and housewares.
But my favorite thing to find when I go is
finding these older silverplate serving trays.
Silverplate trays are nice as they can serve many purposes:
from holding the mail to their original purpose of holding
crackers and cheeses and for serving drinks at parties when they
were first made in the 1940’s through the1980’s.
Similar trays can be found in specialty engraving shops
inside shopping malls and larger department stores
as well as online.
Fun when they aren’t always available when we
need them!
😉
I like to use serving trays to hold tabletop displays
on a coffee table or in the center of my dining room table
seasonally with candles or Christmas trees on top.
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| These are the products I used this time to paint three trays white. |
Back several years ago, my friend Kathy would pick up
silverplate trays at thriftshops whenever she could
find them and then she would spray paint them
white and use them as chargers.
I copied this idea and have a set of six
currently in storage.
She found some really lovely ones with stylized flowers
pressed into their metal edges and I always loved that look.
Happily I found one this past week and knew it would
look lovely redone in white!
🙂
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| Loving the swirls and tiny flowers pressed into the edges of this silverplate tray! |
Here’s a quick tutorial if you’ve never painted
metal trays before…
Painting silverplate trays
I have cheated and skipped this part before, but then the paint
peels off, so… If you’d like your trays to remain painted
here’s how you do it:
*Use a piece of 4-ought steel wool and lightly sand the fronts and backs of each tray.
This will make the paint stick better to the metal and
help prevent its peeling and flaking off later on.
*Cover your table outside or use an old tall cardboard box and follow instructions on the can of spray paint.
Shake can as needed and spray off of the silverplate trays
first to check for lumps in the paint.
*Spray the bottoms first and try not to over spray the edges
too much to prevent dripping onto the fronts.
*Paint in short even strokes ~ I painted on an afternoon when
it was over 90 degrees F outside so I was able to paint
over edges several times overlapping paint strokes
easily without drips.
*Move around after about 30 minutes preventing sticking.
Once dry, flip over and place supports underneath.
{I used gravel rocks under each tray’s back ~ worked great and the irregular surface
really prevented the semi-dry paint from sticking to the rocks.}
Paint the fronts as before using short bursts of paint.
*Paint a second coat on the fronts after the first fully dries.
Mine I had to paint again the next mid-morning.
*Sand back the dried paint with some 220-grit sandpaper
to reveal some metal ~ highlights and picks out the tray’s details.
🙂
*Finish with acrylic sealer in desired finish of
matte or a gloss finish.
Loving the way these painted
trays turned out!
🙂
Here’s a Pinterest pin-worthy pin to share:
Later this week I’ll be sharing these trays in a
festive fall tablesetting along with that
brass feathered cutie also found
while out thrift-shopping…
Sharing with
The Hearth and Soul ~ April J. Harris
Feathered Nest Friday ~ French Country Cottage
Create Bake Grow Gather ~ Shabby Art Boutique
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Happy Fall, ya’ll!
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