Painted Tray with Greek Key Design

After trying AS chalk paint on my dining room chairs, I was eager to try some more colors, so I went ahead and got some more paint. This time I was trying out this beautiful color: Duck Egg.

As soon as I got home I looked for a mini-project to test this new paint, and a tray was a perfect choice.

I loved the color, the previous cherry-colored tray (Oooops! forgot to take a before pic), was immediately transformed, but it was too plain for my liking.

Looking at the little lines the tray has on the sides gave me the idea of painting something with little lines on the surface of the tray.

What better way to do it than with a Greek Key design!  

This is how it went:

TAPE THE DESIGN

The tape was placed all around the perimeter of the tray (I didn't want to deal with measurements).

Given that I wanted thin stripes on the design, Washi tape was also used and cut in thirds (the dots helped on keeping straight lines).

Three pieces of tape were placed alongside the white tape previously attached, leaving small gaps in between each line, as seen in the picture below.

This is how it looked at the end of this step.

-Using tape (again, trying to avoid too many measurements), the corner squares were set. Trimming the excess with an X-Acto knife.

More lines of Washi tape were placed all around the squares, continuing the design as seen in the picture below. 

Cutting the pieces of tape on the marked areas.

Here is when I decided to cut through all those lines, after all, the Greek Key symbolizes infinity or the eternal flow of things.  

This step was not as flawless as I would've hoped.  It took me a long time to cut all those little pieces of tape!

PREVENT PAINT SEEPING UNDER THE TAPE

After all the cutting and the removal of the white tape guides, one coat of the same ASCP Duck Egg that the tray was painted with, was applied to seal those edges and to get straight lines.

Once that base coat is dry, you can go ahead and apply two coats of ASCP Old White, waiting for each coat to dry completely before applying a new coat.

UNCOVER THE BEAUTIFUL GREEK KEY DESIGN

Removing the pieces of tape was easy with the help of the X-acto knife.

And yes, there were mistakes!  

Parts where the lines were not drawn and parts where the "flawless" design was stopped :)

It was left like that!

After a coat of clear wax and slightly buffing, this is how it looks.

It was one of those easy projects that turned out a bit more complex than I imagined :/

All in all, I love how it turned out and my daughter is already enjoying it :)