Jewelry Trays Tutorial

This project has been a LONG one to say the least. I have been working on these trays for over a year now. It has not been a year long of 'true work'...more like on and off work (due to my schedule but also to the weather). So I am glad to have finally finished them and that they finally reached their destination. My friend C. called me today to say they had arrived in the mail and she seemed super excited about them! Yeay!

 

As it often is...this project begun at my local thrift store. You have probably seen tons of Monkeypod items in your local store, but may have never given them a second glance. I did too for some time, until I saw another blogger (jenniferrizzo.com) giving them a second chance at life. I thought they were pretty so, I gave it a go myself. When I shopped for this project I looked mainly at shapes and sizes. I wanted to have a cohesive group, but with different silhouettes.  

One of the bowls was marked on the underside. That's how I found out about Monkeypod! 

Without further ado I went to work on sanding these puppies inside and out. 

Here are the bowls all nice and scratched...

...and here they are after a good wipe down with a damp cotton rag. 

As with all of my spray paint projects, I primed the items twice...

...and then sprayed them with 2 thin coats of white paint. 

Ok, well...this is where the leaves fell from the trees, snow started falling. Then the snow melted and the the cacti bloomed, then we had a few wild fires in the county and FINALLY I got back on track and regained momentum with this project! 

I used some old plastic bags, and painters tape, to mask the areas that I wanted to remain white.

I then sprayed the silver on the exposed areas (Krilon as well, just in silver).

As soon as the silver paint dried (24hrs) I added more bags at a different angle over the original ones and I sprayed with the chosen colors. Really the most difficult part was to make sure I adhered the tape fully and tightly around the bowls, to avoid leaks and smudges. I did pretty good as most edges were very clean and crisp when I removed the tape. 

These are the 3 paints I used for the color blocking. Bauhaus Gold, Gumdrop and Jade, all gloss. As far as the white paint goes, I used the leftover I had from this previous project. No waste ^__^

I was pretty happy at how they turned out. I like the color blocking very much.

I took a few shots of them with some jewelry, just for fun.

Also, I made sure to let C. know that these are not safe for food. Spray paint is not something you want to be in contact with anything edible! 

What do you think?

Will you ever look at Monkeypod in the same way?

...I didn't think so! :-)