How to Make a Chalkboard Holiday Serving Tray

Welcome back!  I’m so excited to share my DIY Chalkboard Holiday Serving Tray with you!  Today is week two of the Deck the Home Blog Hop.  In case you missed it, the Deck the Home Blog Hop is a holiday collaboration of 26 talented DIY bloggers.  For five weeks, we will all create a project based on a common theme.

Last week was door decor, and this week is decor created from anything wood.  I’ve posted the links to all of the blogs at the end of this post, so be sure to hop on over for lots of ideas and inspiration!

For my project, I made over an old wood tray that I bought at a thrift shop for 50 cents.  It was already painted black, but it was tired and pretty beat up.  I was drawn to it because it has pretty handles and cutwork.

I decided to give it a fresh coat of black paint and turn it into a chalkboard holiday serving tray.  To give it a holiday feel, I added snowflake stencils.

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CHALKBOARD HOLIDAY SERVING TRAY SUPPLY LIST:

• Wooden tray
• A Maker’s Studio Rescue Restore Paint in Little Black Dress
• Foam paintbrush
• White chalk
• Stencils of your choice
• Painter’s tape
• A Maker’s Studio Chalkart in Peace and Joy
• Chalkart spreader (you can also use a credit card)
• Tiny paintbrush

I’ve used A Maker’s Studio Rescue Restore paint before to make a chalkboard.  You can check out my chalkboard sign project HERE.

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post nor am I an affiliate for A Maker’s Studio.  

One thing I love about this paint is that it isn’t specifically chalkboard paint, but it can be used as both regular paint or chalkboard paint.  So I just painted the whole tray with one coat of paint and voila!…it was refreshed and made into a chalkboard. You can also use regular chalkboard paint if you prefer.

After the paint dried (about 30 minutes) I seasoned the chalkboard tray with chalk.  

After I covered the bottom of the tray with chalk, I wiped it away with a clean, dry rag.

Now I was ready for the stencils.  I had some cute snowflake stencils in my stash, so I arranged them on the chalkboard along with one that read “Let it Snow”.

Instead of dabbing Chalkart onto the stencil with a brush, the Chalkart is applied directly onto the stencil with a spreader.  It works like a screen print and the image comes out sharp.  I used painter’s tape to keep the stencils in place.

I was very impressed with how the Chalkart worked with my stencils!  There was a little bit of bleed through, but I was able to fix the errors easily with my tiny paintbrush that I dipped into water. If you don’t have Chalkart, you can use regular white paint and the traditional stenciling method.

I think the tray looks pretty good!  What do you think?

Another great quality of Chalkart is that it’s more like paint than chalk, so it doesn’t rub off.  But it comes right off with water, so it’s versatile like chalk.  I thought it would be fun to keep going and add a new design to the tray.  So I erased some of the snowflakes and “Let it Snow”.

Then I added some holiday beverages to the tray with A Maker’s Studio letter mesh stencils.  Because they have a sticky adhesive on back, there’s no need for painter’s tape to hold them in place.  Plus, the stencils can be washed and reused many times.

I couldn’t wait to style the tray with my favorite holiday beverages and snack!

Now that I have eggnog in the house, it’s starting to feel like the holidays are here!

If you’d like to try out A Maker’s Studio products, you can purchase them through my friend Carol’s website, Bluesky at Home.

I’ll be back on Wednesday with a wood project featured post, and again on Friday with a Thanksgiving tablescape, so stop back if you can…

Now it’s time to check out all of the other fabulous wood projects below!

Have a great week 🙂

Rebecca