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It is the third week of my 12 Weeks of Handmade Holidays series, where I am sharing 2 projects a week that are gift ideas you can make for the holidays, or anytime you need a gift. For this week's first project, the crochet pattern, I made a book sleeve. Today is the second project of the week and it is my non-crochet project. Today's project is a little initial trinket tray.
So far the non-crochet gift ideas have been sewing projects but today I am switching it up. There will be more sewing projects during this series, but today's is a simple painting project. For this project I just started with some blank ceramic trinket trays that I bought at Walmart. You can also find similar ones at Michaels, I almost bought there, they had a cute round scalloped edge tray as well as a little heart, but they were more than twice the price of the Walmart versions so I went with those. I'm sure you can find similar things at places like Hobby Lobby but I haven't looked there, as well as on Amazon or other online shops. The ones I bought were less than $3 and I already had plenty of paint so it was a pretty inexpensive project.
I thought a fun way to personalize a little trinket tray, besides the colors, would be to add an initial, or even a monogram. I decided to freehand mine so they are definitely not perfect. If you want a nicer looking letter you could make a vinyl or paper stencil, or even just print and trace a letter on the dish. I think I had more confidence than my painting skills warranted, but I was also ok with a handmade look so I just went with it. My L in the square dish was very off center so I just added some simple little flowers to try to balance it out. On the oval dish I used a q-tip to add dots randomly scattered around. On both dishes I made some kind of little border around the letter, on the oval dish I just added a line right around the inside edge along the base, and on the square dish I made a little square slightly inside and added little scallops around the outside of the square. I think a little striped dish would also be really cute. There isn't really any rhyme or reason to the painting part, just paint whatever you want and whatever you think will look good.
To finish off my tray I wanted to use a topcoat that would give it a nice super shiny finish. I wanted it to look kind of similar to glazed ceramics that are super shiny when they are fired. The painted surface finished with a high gloss spray isn't going to give you quite that same look, but it still gives a nice glossy finish to the project.
This little project was fun to make, there isn't really a right or wrong way to do it so you can just be creative and paint. I think adding the little initial is a fun and simple way to make it personalized but you could leave that off too. You could even let kids get involved, letting them paint a little trinket tray for a grandma or a teacher.
This is the 6th project in this series of handmade gift ideas. I hope you are enjoying these projects and being inspired to make some handmade gifts. Be sure to check out the other projects shared so far in this series- the Solitude Scarf, Easy Fabric Corner Bookmarks, the Merry Hat, and the Trinity Stitch Book Sleeves, with several more projects to come.
How to Make Initial Trinket Trays
You will need:
- unfinished ceramic trinket tray
- acrylic craft paints in a variety of colors
- paintbrushes in different sizes
- clear sealing spray
Instructions:
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