I bought this unique tray from an estate sale. It was not in a very good condition, but I really liked it’s unique sides and handles. I don’t have a proper before picture, but have one after I had taken it apart and cleaned, and sanded it.I wanted to give it a two tone treatment. For that I stained the base with Minwax American Walnut stain.
I chose 2 colors for the sides and handles.
Sides and handles were too bright for the stained base. To make them go nicely with the base, I gave them a light coat of the same stain as the base, Minwax American Walnut.
I then let the stain dry for a couple of days. This tray had a dog engraving, which I wanted to highlight. I carefully filled the engraving grooves with acrylic paint. Because the tray was stained with oil based paint, the acrylic paint did not adhere to the base. Whatever little it did, was easy to just wipe clean with a wet swab. First I filled the dog part white and let it dry. And then taped the parts close to the grass and filled the grass grooves with green.
Color in both the pictures looks different because of the lighting difference. Actual color is close to the second picture.
I then put all the pieces together by screwing the sides and the handles from underside.
To cover the screw holes I simply glued a craft paper to the underside of the base with three coats of Modpodge, letting each layer dry in between.Although the tray is somewhat water proof at this point, I still gave it three coats of minwax paste wax for an extra layer of protection.
This video below shows this whole transformation in about a minute.

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