I hope you are all enjoying your 3 day weekend! I apologize for posting my Makeover Monday so late because I had originally planned on having it ready before we left on our road trip. However, life got in the way (as it usually does) and a few issues arose before we could leave, such as our dryer breaking down while I still had another load in the washer, boooo.

I think Nancy over at ArtsyChicksRule must have influenced me last week with her projects because I was itching to transfer some words onto something other than a plain piece of wood, haha. I also wanted to try out a different transferring technique. I don’t have a cricut or silhouette machine so this time I decided to go with the wax paper transfer method. Here is a tutorial on how I turned a plain Ikea tray into a DIY French Cottage tray with the help of The Graphic’s Fairy.

DIY French Cottage Tray

• Tray
• Wax Paper
• Ink Jet Printer
• Double Sided Tape
• Cardstock Paper
• Reversed Graphic
• Stencil
• Stencil Marker
• Paint
• Paintbrush
• Spoon or Credit Card
• Polycrylic
• Twine or Rope

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Step 1:

Disassemble Your Tray – I had to disassemble my tray because I needed to flip the laminated/plastic side over since I wasn’t too sure how well the paint would stick <– I can thank Eric for that tip. However, if you are using an all wood tray you can skip this step.

Step 2:

Paint your tray – I decided to do a white-wash on the wooden parts of the tray, which is essentially mixing your paint with water to thin it out so that you can still see part of the wood grain underneath the paint. I would say I mixed about 25% paint with 75% water and then wiped it off with a rag. I went over the wooden parts of the tray 2 times to achieve the look I wanted. I then painted the actual tray part with 2 coats of grey chalk paint I had on hand.

Step 3:

Prepare your Graphic for Transferring – Once my tray was dry and put back together it was time to print my graphic out on wax paper. I used a french typography graphic via The Graphic’s Fairy, plus she already includes the reversed graphic which is what you will need. If you are using your own image then you can reverse it using various photo editing software. If you have paint {which comes standard on most PC’s} then you can simply open your image, click “Rotate” and then “Flip Horizontal” and you’re done.

You will then need to print your image onto wax paper, which can be purchased at any grocery store, target, etc.  I cut my wax paper to roughly the size of printer paper so that it would fit in the printer {I have a Canon InkJet Printer}. Here is what I learned:

1. Trying to print onto wax paper is NOT easy. First off, you will want to make sure to print on the “waxy” side and because the wax paper is so thin, it easily gets jammed in the printer or wrinkles up and tears.

2. It may be easier to tape your wax paper onto a plain piece of copy paper using double-sided tape along the edges, but your wax paper will still more than likely get jammed up in the printer or wrinkle up, even if you try to guide it. {Photo 2 below shows my FAILED attempt of printing with the wax paper taped to a piece of regular copy paper}

3. Cardstock Paper is GENIUS when it comes to wax paper transfers. I had some extra sheets of Kraft Paper #70 and decided to tape a piece of wax paper to it (waxy side up) using double-sided tape along the edges. I put it in the printer and Voila! My graphic printed out beautifully without getting jammed up or wrinkled, yay! (The 3rd photo below shows my wax paper taped to a piece of the Kraft Cardstock Paper.)

Side Note: You will want to work quickly after you print your image, so make sure you have everything ready prior to printing it out.

Step 4:

“Burn” Your image onto your Tray Using a Spoon or Credit Card – So now that you have your graphic printed out, you will want to remove the wax paper from the cardstock and place it where you want it on your tray. You can lightly wet down the area of the tray you will be applying the transfer to – I used a damp paper towel but a rag would have been better. You don’t want your tray to get soaked, just a little damp which will help the image transfer over a little darker and you will also want to work quickly. You will place the image, ink side down, onto your tray and make sure you put it exactly where you want it because if you move it the ink can smudge. After you have it down in place you will want to start rubbing over the entire graphic with a credit card or you could use the bottom, rounded part of a spoon. Again, be sure to keep the paper in place so that the image doesn’t smudge or move.

I learned about this wax technique via Unexpected Elegance and the spoon technique via Country Design Home – I used the spoon first and then the credit card but think the card worked better.

Step 5:

Complete touch-ups using a stencil marker or Paint Brush – I went over my graphic with a stencil marker I had picked up in a pack at Michael’s last week. You could use any kind of permanent marker or even use a paint brush with some watered down paint to fill in any areas you would like.

Step 6:

Add a Stencil to your Graphic – You could skip this step, but after transferring on the image, I felt like the tray needed something more. I picked out one of my Martha Stewart stencil’s and taped it into place above the graphic. I then used my black stencil marker to fill in the stencil and repeated this step for below the graphic as well.

Step 7:

Distress your graphic with sandpaper – As you can see in the image above, my stencil came out too dark and I also wanted to distress the graphic transfer as well. I used 220 grit sandpaper to lightly sand on top of the graphic and stencil to give it that worn, aged look.

Step 8:

Rope up the handles – This is another step you could skip but I just love the texture rope or twine can add to a project. I was all out of rope but had some natural sisal twine on hand so I used that. Unfortunately I don’t have any photos of this step, but I basically just cut off a realllllllllly long piece, tied it onto the handle with the knot hidden on the underside, and started wrapping it around. You could also glue it into place. I did this to both sides.

Step 9:

Protect your new DIY French Cottage tray – Now that your tray is finished you could brush on some Polycrylic to protect it.

Step 10:

That’s it, your DIY French Cottage tray is now ready to be used and enjoyed.

Here are my after photos:

So what do you think of the DIY French Cottage Tray? It may not be perfect, but I’m pretty happy with the results and will definitely be using this technique on future projects.