I was looking for something to use as a laptop tray and this serving tray seemed like the logical choice. My daughter had expressed interest in working on a project together, so I thought this piece would be perfect. I wasn’t sure what to do with it, but then I remembered I had received an epoxy resin kit awhile back. I had planned on making coasters or jewelry with my daughter, but because we didn’t have any silicone molds, that sat in storage for many months as well. So I decided we would use this for our make-over. 

The first thing we did was paint out the top of the serving tray white, to fade out the mac tac flowers. The cheapest white I had on hand was primer, so we used that.  Once it was dry I gave it a quick spray with satin clear to help prevent the paint from scratching while we were doing the other steps.

We decided to attempt a beach/ocean theme. Because we only had a very small amount of epoxy resin (8 oz) we painted over the white, in the same colours we were planning to use in the epoxy. I used unicorn spit for the two shades of blue and a gold paint for the sand. We poured the three colours on the surface.  

We used a chip brush to spread out the gold. For the spit, I sprayed them with distilled water and used my hand to smear the colours from side to side. We used a paper towel to remove as much of the stain and paint from the frame as possible, before it dried on.

Once that was dry we mixed the epoxy resin together and separated into four cups. Then we added the powdered tints for the colours we wanted.  

We poured the three colours over top of the matching paint colour and used the stir sticks to spread it out to the edges.

Then we added a few lines of white and tried to blend them in using a heat gun. It started smoking immediately! I think because we had such a small amount of epoxy resin. So we switched to a hair-dryer, using the cool setting. This worked much better.  

The last step was to paint the frame. My daughter lost interest at this point – so I did the final step without her. LOL I gave it a light sanding and painted it dark blue.  

And while we didn’t quite nail the ocean/beach we were after, we still love the way it turned out! And even more special because we made it together.  

And when I’m not using it, I just fold the legs up and lean it up against the wall to double as art. 😊  

I didn’t spend anything on this make-over, so I based my make-over cost on the average cost of the materials used. It's amazing what you can do with supplies you may already have!