This holiday season,  I decided to craft some gifts not only to save money, but simply for the sake of doing something different.  When people stop by our house for a visit, they notice all the upcycled furniture and home decor items.  One of those items in particular, our Decoupaged  Philadelphia Phillies TV tray gets a good deal of attention. For this reason, I thought tables such as these would make great gifts.  Most folks have a set of these boring wooden TV trays at home.

Despite the lack of design qualities these trays are very functional and often times serve an important purpose.  Who hasn’t sat in front of the TV, and used one of these little trays to devour a late night snack, or simply use as a laptop computer table?

I was in the thrift store and happened across four for sale.  I snatched them up and was glad that I did!  For three of these tables, I decided to use sports team themes, (the recipients are all sports fans, I will save what I did to the fourth table for a future post.)  I found sports images online and printed them out on my printer. If you do not have an available printer, you can use decals, fabric, baseball cards, you name it!

First, be sure and clean the table thoroughly.  Once the table is clean and dry apply a white latex primer.  To speed up this process, I purchased a spray on primer.  I took the tables outside and applied two coats to each table, allowing each table to dry thoroughly between coats.  Table number one was for a Washington Redskins fan.  I painted the table with acrylic paint in the Washington Redskins colors, gold and a deep dark red, almost burgundy color.  Once dry, I used Mod Podge to carefully apply the printed image to the table surface.   I then applied Mod Podge over top of the print and covered all the painted areas with Mod Podge to seal the table.  The Mod Podge on its own is enough to seal the table, but since I was giving these as gifts, I added a coat of a polyurethane clear coat sealer for added protection against moisture and heavy use.  Be sure to be mindful of the parts of the table that fold up. (“On the Upcycle” mistake alert!)  If any Mod Podge or Polyurethane drip into these areas and dry it can be problematic if you try to open the table and it “sticks”  This happened a little with the Washington Redskins table and caused the paint to “chip” a bit in the area that the legs were slightly “stuck” together.  Despite this minor flaw, the table turned out well!

I repeated the same steps for table number two (New York Yankees Sports fan table)

and table number three (Philadelphia Eagles Sports fan table)

Before giving the gifts, I inspected the tables carefully, touching up any areas that needed it.  They seemed to be a big hit with those who received one.  It also marked the first time I attempted to work on multiple projects at the same time.

TV Trays Before and After: