Tray Chic

Trays are all over the home decor scene.  Rather than displaying your tiny treasures haphazardly, trays create a cohesive home for your trinkets.  Now, I know we haven't gotten to know each other that well yet but you will quickly learn I refuse to spend money on something I can DIY.  I am a quintessential penny pincher.  I love to coupon and am always on a hunt for a bargain.  So when I stumbled upon this $5 hot mess in the Marshalls clearance section I had an ah-ha moment.
I saw this:

Becoming something like this:

Via Centsationalgirl

Or this:

Via Myhomeideas

Large lacquer trays like this one from West Elm go for around $60.  As nice as they look, $60 for a tray is not in my decorating budget.

The teal paint on my tray was peeling and I most definitely was not feeling the faux alligator skin.  Upon further investigation I realized the tray was merely covered in the faux alligator and I knew exactly what I was going to do with the sad looking piece.

Once I got home I began pulling the vinyl off of the tray...this was a little messier than anticipated:

And this was what I was left with:

The tray skeleton was left with paint chips and glue.  I thought this is nothing a little Goo Gone can't take care of.  Boy was I wrong.  After scrubbing, and scrubbing, and a little more scrubbing, I thought maybe my orbital sander could do the job.  Again, I was wrong.  This just smoothed out the glue and didn't remove it.  Finally, after much trial and error, I discovered soaking the tray in hot soapy water then using the Goo Gone removed the industrial strength glue effortlessly.  This was the result:

I sanded then sprayed the tray with a few coats of Rustoleum enamel spray paint in white gloss.  The product of my efforts is currently drying in our garage, so tomorrow I will share with you how it looks in a post about styling trays!  Sorry this post was a tad anticlimactic but since I took the past two days off from my 21 day journey in reviving my blog I wanted to share a little of what I have been up to.  Cheers to day five of blogging and happy hump day!