Farmhouse Kitchen Tray DIY

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On one of my most recent thrifting trips, I found these two pieces. Trays and candle holders are two things that I always pick up, especially if the price is right. I think I paid about a dollar for each of these, no more than two. My instant visual was that I would use each piece separately, but later on, I decided to combine them to make this fabulous farmhouse kitchen tray!

wooden candle holder brown thrift store goodwill

metal tray from goodwill thrift store snowman snowflakes

The first thing that I did was paint the snowman tray with the white acrylic paint. I placed my piece in front of my space heater after each coat to dry. It took several coats to really cover the image/color on the tray. To avoid paint streaks, I used a small paint roller. That ended up giving it a rough texture, which was perfect. (This was one of my first blog post projects, y’all. Definitely don’t use acrylic paint for metal pieces like this or you might lose your Christian. Lol Use chalk paint instead. I’ve grown so much and learned so much since I started this blogging journey.)

Definitely make sure that’s chalk paint. Haha!

painting a metal tray with white acrylic paint

using a paint roller to apply acrylic paint to a metal tray to avoid streaks

While the tray was drying, I painted the wooden candle holder. Same procedure here; paint, sit to dry, second coat, dry, final coat. I did not get photos of this piece alone when it was completely painted, but you can see it in the finished photos. Some people like to use spray paint for pieces like this, but acrylic paint has worked really well for me on various projects recently. Use what you feel most comfortable with. (Obviously now I would use chalk paint. Never would I put myself through the nightmare of using acrylic paint on a piece like this ever again. Haha! It’s fun looking back though.)

Next, while this piece was drying, I added a burlap ribbon around the edge of the tray. I did this because there were 3D snowflakes that you could still see through the paint. The burlap was added to the inside and outside of the tray. I used hot glue to apply.

The last thing to do was to glue the tray and candle holder together. I like to use E6000 for this, because it is more secure than hot glue. Since I will be adding things to this tray, we needed a stronger adhesive.

using e6000 glue to attach the painted wooden candle holder to the bottom of the painted tray

I used a measuring tape to make sure I positioned the candle holder in the center of the tray. Nothing is worse than a lopsided tray stand! Lol

using a measuring tape to center the bottom of the farmhouse kitchen tray

Check out that nice centered candlestick!

a painted candleholder glued to the bottom of a painted metal tray to make a farmhouse kitchen tray

Flip that Sucker over and Your farmhouse kitchen tray DIY is complete!

farmhouse kitchen tray made from a thrift store tray and candle holder

This tray is perfect for a table centerpiece or to add to a seasonal vignette! This could be used as a tray for dinner rolls, as long as you add a towel to cover it, as the paint is not food grade. Although, you could seal this with the dishwasher safe Mod Podge to make this safe as a serving dish, without it being covered. However you use it, it will look perfect in addition to your other farmhouse decor!