Decorative Tray DIY with Minwax
This blog post is sponsored by Minwax. All opinions are my own.
You know how you can look at a space and feel it's missing something? Well that’s how I was feeling with my kitchen island for the last few weeks. I knew I wanted some type of decorative tray to place in the center of the island as a focal point to set flowers and greenery and maybe even a candle to add a nice touch to the space.
Lately, I’ve been really into the beaded look that I’ve seen on mirrors, lamps, vases, and bowls and I knew that was the look I wanted to create for my decorative tray. I also knew that I wanted it to be a wooden tray. So of course I turned to my favorite staining products with Minwax to help me pull off this DIY.
To get started I grabbed my supplies. I love this super simple DIY because it doesn't require any power tools.
Materials:
Wood glue
Painters tape
Staining pad
Clean rags
Latex gloves
Tack cloth
220-grit sand block
I started by dabbing a drop of wood glue on the wood balls to place them on the perimeter of the plywood circle. To keep the balls in place while the glue dried, I secured it to the plywood circle using painters tape.
Using an extra wood ball, I placed it between each glued down ball to ensure even spacing. I repeated this until the entire plywood circle was complete.
After letting the glue dry for more than an hour, I removed the tape and was ready to stain. But before getting to that step I used a 220-grit sand block to even out the surface of the circle and the balls to prepare for the Minwax products.
Once everything was sanded and wiped down with a tack cloth, I grabbed a clean rag and applied an even layer of pre-stain wood conditioner. It's always a good idea to use a wood conditioner to prep the surface of the wood to ensure you get a nice even coat of stain.
Allow the pre-stain wood conditioner to dry for about 15 minutes (and remember to wipe off any excess), now we can get to the fun part of applying the stain. I decided to use Minwax Gel Stain. Can I just tell you how much I really like this product? The consistency of the stain is thick so it minimizes drips and the coverage allows for a really rich appearance highlighting the grain of the wood.
I used a stain pad to apply the gel stain to the top of the plywood circle and used a rag to help get into the tight areas where the wood balls connected to the side of the circle. Allow the gel stain to sit for around 10 minutes and then wipe up an excess stain with another clean rag.
Isn’t that gorgeous?
After letting the gel stain dry for 24 hours, I came back and applied the Minwax Fast-Dry Polyurethane protective topcoat.
The finished product came out better than I expected. My sister-in-law happened to drop by my house once the tray was completed and asked for me to make one for her kitchen!
This tray is the perfect size for my large island to set a vase of greenery on and the rich wood tone of the gel stain adds a bit of warmth on top of the faux marble countertop.
This really was a super easy DIY to bring in a fresh new element in a space. Let me know if you decide to make this decorative tray for yourself!