This is the tray I saw at Target. I embarrassed my oldest son by whipping out my camera to take pictures of several items in the line. Every time I do that he whines “WHAT are you doing?” Ha! Hey, kid, I can’t help when inspiration strikes!
Here is my knock off. Pretty close, right? Would you believe I didn’t paint any of the numbers?
Next, I coated each number on the colored side with gel medium. You want a thick coat. I intentionally put less in some places so that the image would not transfer, since I was looking for a distressed look. I then adhered the number, colored side down, onto the tray and smoothed it down. Try to wipe away any excess gel that squeezes out.
Once the tray was covered I let it dry overnight. As you can see, the numbers all have the back of the paper (white side) showing, and the colored side “glued” down with the gel medium.
Here’s the fun part! Wet a wash cloth and gently start to rub on each number. The paper will peel away, but the ink is left in the gel medium on the wood tray. Almost like magic. 🙂
Apply more pressure to wear more color away as desired, but don’t rub too hard or you might take the whole thing off!
I kept a spray bottle with water next to me so I could mist my wash cloth and continue.
Here it is after all the “paper peeling” has been done. Kind of messy. I use a dry cloth to wipe the mess away.
Here is a close up of the numbers. I love that they look painted on and aged, even though I didn’t paint or distress a thing!
As a final step, I mixed a few drops of alcohol ink with Mod Podge to seal my project. I wanted a matte finish, and I wanted my tray to look “old” (the white was too clean looking), and this is another trick I like to use. After I mix the Mod Podge and ink (I used Ranger Ink’s Caramel) to the color I like, I brush it on, more in some places than others, to get a streaky “dirty” look.
I absolutely love my new tray and can’t wait to use it! This may not have been a very fast tutorial, but I hope you’ll agree that it is frugal and looks fabulous! Who doesn’t love a good knock off?
To learn how to use this technique to transfer vintage images, please visit this post.
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