Gorgeous TV Tray Makeover With Unicorn Spit and Chalk Paint!

by Michelle McCaughtry

9 Materials

$10

1 Day

Easy

TV trays can be found at any thrift store or garage sale and don't they all look about the same? Time to break out some chalk paint, unicorn spit and glitter to give one a whole new look.

gorgeous tv tray makeover with unicorn spit and chalk paint

Here is a tv tray I picked up at a garage sale for $2. Your usual run of the mill wood look.

I cleaned it well with TSP and once that was dry I wiped it again with some denatured alcohol on a paper towel. (Pay no attention yet to the cup of dark green paint - lol)

I get e-mails from Sherwin Williams about their paint color of the month and one month it was a color called Cascades. It was a beautiful deep green/teal color. Sherwin Williams "samples" are huge and a great deal for only $8. Plus if you have any coupons it's even a better bargain. So I had to buy this one.

Using the pictured recipe I mixed up a cup of home made chalk paint. You can get Calcium carbonate powder on line or at most health food stores.

Then using a chip brush, I painted the tray and the legs in this gorgeous deep green teal color. It was an almost perfect match to Unicorn spit Navajo Jewel. See next picture.

Since I wasn't going to do anything more with the legs I gave them 2 light coats of the Spar Urethane to seal the unicorn spit.

Then I took my dollar store spray bottles and mixed up unicorn spit and water. The ratio I used was about 7 to 1 - 7 parts unicorn spit to one part water. After a while you just learn to eyeball your measurements - so I do 7 squirts of unicorn spit into my bottle and then add 1 or 2 squirts of water and shake well. I used Blue Thunder, Purple Hill Majesty, Zia Teal, Patina, Midnight Blackness, and Finchi Fran (gold). Finchi Fran would not spray out of the bottle for some reason so in the end I dribbled it full strength on the tray and spritzed it with water and moved it around by blowing it with a straw. You can see the gold in the final picture.

I started with black in a spray pattern. Spraying is very messy and gets everywhere so I recommend putting your piece in a box as you spray. I have cleaned up unicorn spit from my basement work space walls - it's easy to clean but why give yourself extra work...?

Then I added a mist of Zia Teal and then bolts of purple hill. The different sprays are set by the nozzle on the spray bottle. More closed for the mist and more open for the bolts.