Painted Wooden Bowls & Trays ~ Pinterest Challenge

Welcome to the April Pinterest Challenge Blog Hop, hosted by My Pinterventures. The purpose of this Pinterest Challenge is to motivate all the participants of this hop {and y’all too} to not just pin, but to make it happen! Look below for a list of past challenges.

Past Challenges

The current list for 2019 challenges is below & you can check out this post for a list of 2018 challenges.

• Giant Paper Roses
• Making Feathers of All Kinds
• Bleaching Fabric for Bags

Now, let’s look at what I picked for the April’s challenge! The pin I decided to try out this month is a fairly recent pin, but it really gave me a different look at some thrifted items in my DIY stash. This one comes from Brit + Co & it’s about making over wooden serving ware with paint blocking. I find small wooden trays & bowls on a regular basis when I’m at thrift stores & yard sales. They are usually 50 cents to a dollar & very hard for me to resist! I liked the idea of adding some color while preserving some of the wood coloring, so I decided to give it a try.

To join next month’s #pinterestchallenge, click here to sign-up ⇒ May Pinterest Challenge

Let’s meet this month’s Pinterest Challenge hosts!

Erlene – My Pinterventures  •  Jenny – Cookies Coffee and Crafts
Lynne – My Family Thyme  •  Pili – My Sweet Things
T’onna – Sew Crafty Crochet  •  Julie – Sum of their Stories
Erin – The DIY Nuts •  Roseann – This Autoimmune Life
Beverly – Across the Boulevard •  Kristie – Love My Little Cottage
Ali – Home Crafts by Ali  •  Cherryl – Farm Girl Reformed
Leslie – Once Upon a Time & Happily Ever After •  Terri – Our Good Life
Lauren – Mom Home Guide  •  Joanne – Our Unschooling Journey
Shirley – Intelligent Domestications  •  Gail – Purple Hues and Me
Audra –  Renewed Projects •  Kristie – Teadoddles •  Alayna – Alayna’s Creations
Marie – The Inspiration Vault  •  Susan – Suzerspace
Lydia – Lydia’s Flexitarian Kitchen •  Terrie – Decorate and More with Tip
 Emily – Domestic Deadline •  Marci – Stone Cottage Adeventures

All the Wooden Things

As I said before, these little wooden bowls & trays are hard for me to resist when I’m out thrifting. In my recent crafty estate sale haul I found a little pile of them which, of course, found their way back to my house…

Most of these are made of monkey pod wood which has some great grain lines & is very light weight. The bowls are a Giftwood, Inc. brand & had a very stern warning their labels…

By the way, not permanent because one was already missing! There’s a hole in the bottom of each bowl, probably from turning the wood. I think that’s the real reason for the warning on the label. ; )

Anyway, I grabbed some of my favorite multi-purpose cleaner & gave all the items a good cleaning.

This is important for most wooden items being painted, but especially for thrifted ones.

Paint it!

I’ve never been much of a fan of painting everything wooden white. Some wooden things are gorgeous to behold & stand on their own. Plus, there’s so many other colors to choose from! Now, there are some things that definitely deserve to be covered up. Hello faux wooden paneling in my hallway, I’m talking to you!

I’m going with two of my favorite shades of DecoArt’s Chalky Finish – Vintage & Treasure. I also plan to add some fun accents with another favorite from the DecoArt line, Extreme Sheen. The inspiration post used bright acrylics, which I love, but I’m going a more nature inspired direction.

Got my lines taped off & first coat on…

After two coats I have some {mostly} clean lines…

Now I think it’s time to experiment with some very shiny paint!

Details Please!

I wanted to try out some crackle medium on the leaf like trays. This one is not my favorite because it doesn’t work as well as some I’ve used in the past.

I coated all of the painted section & extended it a little past the paint line.

While that was drying, it was time to splatter some bowls! I had taped the bowls in gradually higher lines before painting because I thought it would look neat as a set.

Into my “special paint booth” for a good splatter of gold paint. An old toothbrush works the best for this, by the way.

Now why that dries I can check on my crackle paint. This particular crackle medium just dries in a crackle pattern. Then when you paint over it, it kind of picks up that pattern. That’s why it’s not my favorite! Other crackle mediums actually affect the paint on top so it is more chippy, peel-y & all that good stuff. : )

I used a different color Extreme Sheen on each tray to see how each one did. It’s not exactly the look I was going for, but I still like it.

I like how you can still see the line from the original paint but it’s softened by the metallic paints.

Here they are all together…

I think the bowl set is my favorite! I did put a wax coating over these since more of the chalk paint is exposed.

The trays are still nice, just not the effect I was hoping for…

Either way it was fun to do & I have a head start on gifts for the year! These will be great paired with some fun jewelry finds. : )

Now, let’s see what the other hosts have created ⇓⇓