DIY Ikat Fabric Tray

Back when I was going a little tray crazy, I picked up a bunch of unfinished trays when they were on sale. I think they were all less than $3. My mom recently gave me some remnant fabric in a gorgeous grey and bronze ikat print, so I thought I'd try my hand at a fabric tray. I chose the coral because I'm trying to not be so matchy-matchy. Normally, I would have just done ivory paint on the tray, but I like the way the coral works with it.

So here's how I did it:
Materials:

• wooden tray (I got my from Jo-Ann)
• spray primer
• spray paint
• fabric (mine was pretty thick, and I think that worked to my advantage, but I will try again with a thinner fabric and see how that works)
• spray adhesive
• Scotchgard spray
• glass or plexiglass cut to fit the inside of the tray

1) Spray paint the tray with a primer.
2) Spray paint the tray with your choice of color, as many coats as you need. Be sure to let the paint dry between coats.
3) Spray paint the tray with lacquer (I use Rust-Oleum, according to this post).
4) Cut a piece of thin cardboard for the inside size of your tray. I used the cardboard back of a large pad of paper (I always keep those, you never know when they might come in handy!) I did this by pressing the cardboard into the back of the tray, then tracing a line along a ruler on the bend mark. There's probably a more accurate way, but worked for me.
5) Cut your fabric about an inch or so larger than your cardboard piece.
6) Iron your fabric.
7) Place cardboard piece in top of the fabric and iron the sides over the edges of the cardboard. Fold the corners in any way that works. You can cut them later.
8) Using spray adhesive, spray the cardboard piece (do this outside so the stick doesn't get everywhere)
9) Place the cardboard so that it fits within the ironed edges and smooth out well with your fingertips. 
10) Using spray adhesive, spray the fabric pieces that will be folded over. The spray adhesive is forgiving. I went back after I was done, and pulled all the edges tighter. Fold the corners however it works for you. I liked it to have a squared edge because it fit nice and tight in the tray. I tried giving it an edge that was not squared and it left a gap in the corners of the tray and didn't look so good. 
11) Cut any bulky pieces off the corners.
12) Spray the front of the fabric with Scotch-gard spray if you have it. 
12) Place cardboard fabric piece into tray. I left a big book on mine overnight because the corners seemed to pop up. Maybe because the corners were a bit higher because of  the way the fabric was layered in the corners. The book helped to smash it down flat. 
13) You could leave it as it is, but I wanted the beautiful ikat to be even more protected and wanted it a finished look, so I put a piece of cut glass into it. I had the piece of glass leftover from something, so I just took it to the hardware store and had them cut it to size. The nice guys at Hartman & Sons Hardware did it for FREE, gotta love that! You could also use plexiglass if you wanted.

For me this was a $3 tray. I got the tray on sale, the fabric was given to me and I already had the rest. Not bad.
Happy Tray Making!