DIY Serving Tray for the Coffee Lover

We’re on another easy DIY gift giving kick today – last one we did was for pet owners, now this one is a DIY Serving Tray for the Coffee Lover. This little gift is one you can whip up in an afternoon. Promise. It also includes a tutorial for how to transfer an image onto wood using wax paper!!

Here’s what I used to create this sweet personalized tray.

solid pine board cut to 17″x11.5″*
two 1x2s cut to 11.5″
two 1x2s cut to 19″
Ryobi Air Striker nail gun
wood glue
White Chalky Finish Paint
Black Chalky Finish Paint
laser ink jet printer
wax paper
Drawer Pulls

First things first, cut your boards or have them cut for you at the hardware store. Then assemble your tray. Affix the short 1x2s to the short ends of your large board using wood glue first and then nails. Then once those are on, attach your longer boards to the outsides using the same method.

I wanted my tray to look a bit shabby chic, so once my tray was assembled, I went over the edges with a bit of black chalk paint.

Then two coats of white chalk paint. Now, if you want to, you can just add your hardware and be done – but I wanted it to be a little more fun! So I hopped over to the Graphics Fairy and found this adorable vintage coffee typography print.

Here’s the trick! I printed it out on wax paper! I’d seen this method online a bunch of times, but I was skeptical. I figured if it was a big mess, I could just sand it down and start again.

This is how it works. Cut wax paper to the exact size of your regular sized printer paper and make sure your print-out design is sized properly. MAKE SURE YOU REVERSE YOUR IMAGE. Feed your wax-lined paper into the printer tray of an ink jet printer and print as normal!

Let it sort of dry for a few seconds so the ink doesn’t smear and then place your designed wax paper onto your (in this case) tray and use a credit card or something to smooth it down.

Remove your paper and there is your design! Amazing, right?

I went back over a few places with a light hand and a lead pencil. Then I added the hammered metal hardware to the sides of the tray.

Then just seal it with some clear top coat to protect it from heat and what not and you’re good to go 🙂Even though this project has nothing to do with the holidays, it has put me in the festive mood. I even brought out our winter coffee mugs 🙂

I love that the vibe of this tray goes perfectly with our DIY recovered storage ottoman. It it still one of my very favourite projects to date. I guess I’m a sucker for big chunky plaids.

So what do you think? Willing to try out the wax paper transfer technique? I’m definitely going to try it again on something else. I think with a few more tries, I can master the it.