Paint Thrift Store Trays to Make Beautiful, Inexpensive Home Decor

I have to start by thanking my wonderful friend Louise from Paint-Er Up for the idea for this post. Louise inspired me to try painting some vintage silver trays. She makes the most gorgeous trays and I wanted to try for myself with some thrift store trays. I found these three trays and they literally cost next to nothing.Thrift stores are full of these aluminum and silver plated vintage trays and you can usually find them in abundance.I love the patterns on the three I chose and thought they would be pretty painted. They each got a coat of Fusion Mineral Paint in Limestone to start.

Fusion was great for this project because of its beautiful finish and built-in top coat.Once the trays had two layers of paint, I lightly sanded the high points of the pattern. I wanted to see the silver peek through so the sandpaper took off just enough paint to make that possible. To give the trays a little sheen before they were done, I lightly brushed on a coat of Fusion Mineral Paint Metallics in Pearl. The Metallic paint blended in perfectly with the Limestone and gave it that perfect little essence of pearl.

Even though this is a much quicker, “knock-0ff” version of Louise’s gorgeous trays, if you are looking to change-up your decor or add a little something, this is an inexpensive and easy way to do that. I would definitely recommend picking up some of these trays the next time you are out and giving this a whirl. And a huge thanks again to Louise from Paint-Er Up for the inspiration!