Sometimes it can be a challenge to finish a project. It’s not that the project itself is hard to do, but circumstances and life tend to get in the way. For me, it has been this way for the last several months. Today we are sharing an up-cycle project with our Mandala Embossed Mandala Tray.
I embossed this beautiful mandala pattern earlier this year. . . just because. Do you ever do that? Make something just for the enjoyment or challenge of it, but have no plan as to what you will do with it when you are finished?
That is exactly what happened with this embossed mandala. I made it, then tucked it away hoping that someday I’d figure out what I wanted to do with it.
Earlier this year, my Dad brought over a box full of old metal holiday cookie trays and asked me if I could use them for something. I happily added them to my growing pile of ‘maybe someday up-cycle’ projects.
And there they sat. For several months. Amid a sea of stored boxes and furniture.
First with Daughter #2’s things when she moved in with us for the summer after she graduated from college, until she found a job and her own place. Then, with my mother-in-laws things after her house was sold and until we could help her set up in her new home.
Next, it was wedding supplies and decorations. And now, we are storing some of my oldest daughters things until she has a chance to go through it and decide what she is going to keep to be stored in our attic for the next year while she and her new husband take a gap year and travel the world.
This space, my space, has been a revolving door of storage for most of the year. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining at all. We were and are more than happy to be able to help and store these things for our family.
The end result of all of this is, I just haven’t be able to finish as many projects as I would have liked to this year. Which brings me back to this project and the box of metal trays that my Dad gave me.
This box of old metal cookie trays couldn’t really be put away because of all the other things we were storing. I just set it on top of the other boxes, which made it pretty accessible. And, I found that I only had to scale three towering mountains of boxes to reach my stash of spray paints and my finished embossed pieces.
Not only that, but if I sucked in my breath, turned sideways and tippy-toed around another pile of boxes and furniture, I could then reach my roll of painters tape!
And so, that is how this project got completed.
I first spray painted a tray using a gloss white. I wanted to add gold stripes, so I attached strips of painters tape and then spray painted the tray with metallic gold.
To finish it off, I glued down my gold embossed mandala in the center.
I think the tray is the perfect backdrop for this beautiful embossed pattern and it will make a lovely decor piece for my home.
Thank you!
A counter-top garden is the easiest hydroponic — drop in a pre-seeded pod, fill the reservoir, and herbs are ready in 6 weeks. AeroGarden created the category but several Amazon brands now offer competitive units at ha
Hydroponics — growing plants in nutrient-rich water without soil — sounds technical but modern starter kits make it simpler than container gardening. No soil, no weeds, faster growth, and a year-round herb supply on
Houseplants in dim Australian winters or US northern-aspect rooms genuinely struggle. A good LED grow light keeps fiddle-leaf figs growing, lets you raise seedlings on a windowless laundry shelf, and means you can have h
Most Australian and US snakes do their job — keep rodents in check, mind their own business — but for properties with kids, dogs or chooks, reducing snake activity around the immediate yard makes sense. Repellents ha
Brushtail and ringtail possums are protected wildlife in Australia — you can’t legally kill, trap, or relocate them. So the question isn’t how to get rid of possums, it’s how to live alongside them while saving your ro
Australian gardens don’t typically have deer (kangaroos do similar damage in some areas), but deer pressure on US and parts-of-NZ gardens is brutal. A small herd will eat a hundred dollars of new ornamental plantings ove
