diy painted tray

You might think that I’m obsessed with zebras between this project and my Zebra Stone necklaces, but really I’m not. What I love is the strong graphic contrast of black and white. I think it can make a pretty powerful statement.

Now black and white (and shades of gray) with pops of color? Here we go! Introducing a zebra stripe painted tray! This is super easy and fun to make!

Zebra stripe tray

I started out with a simple wooden tray from Michaels, and years ago I spray painted it black. I didn’t really do anything with it, and I didn’t even finish it properly. Over the years dust collected on it and it got really gross:

Dirty Tray

Ew. So I very wiped it down with a very lightly damp cloth, and attacked it with my little sander. Then I wiped it down again and let it dry overnight. It still looked pretty good, so I went ahead and just started painting it.

I searched for images of zebra stripes, and basically free-handed my own. I chose to keep the sides with the handles black, but let the stripes continue over the long sides of the tray. I used a white acrylic paint mixed with just a tiny amount of yellow ochre. The yellow ochre helps to knock back the bright white and warm it up just a tad.

This picture is taken in mid-process. I have one coat over the right half, and I’ve started putting a second coat on the left:

Painted tray in progress

Two coats of paint pretty much worked over the whole thing- with a few minor touch ups here and there. After it was dry, I went back with black paint over any oops areas, or anything that just needed to be a little more smooth.

Finished painted tray

Here is the finished tray- which I like with the subtle variations in the black (from where I sanded it down). But it really pops against the yellow painted bookshelf in the twin room: