Dictionary Decoupage - Nesting Trays

Nesting trays are a valuable addition to any home, and they can be personalized to say something about you or convey a message to your guests. I love vintage illustrated dictionaries, so I used a few pages to decoupage these once unfinished nesting trays from a craft store. The pages were not wide enough to cover the bottoms of the tray, so I filled the gap with copy paper blackened with Prismacolor marker and written on in cursive with a gold, metallic gel pen. The wildflowers, which I found in a coloring book, were traced on tissue paper with a Sharpie fine point marker. (You can also use coffee filters in place of tissue paper.) I then colored the flowers with Prismacolor colored pencils.

A few finishing tips: always sand the raw wood first, prep the wood with gesso and sand between coats, paint the sides of the tray before decoupaging, use my favorite glue, 3M Scotch Fast Drying Tacky Glue, to apply the decoupage, and top-coat after the glue is completely dry with acrylic varnish.

I needed to bridge the gap between two pages from a dictionary, so I blackened clay-coated copy paper with a Prismacolor permanent marker and wrote words from the dictionary on it in a gold metallic gel pen.

I subscribe to the theory that, if you have to search for an item in a cabinet or closet to use it, you won’t use it. I made it easy to use these trays by storing them on a bookshelf in the dining room. They are pretty to look at when not in use and readily accessible when needed.

I use the trays to serve snacks on movie night.

I traced the flowers on tissue paper and colored them with Prismacolor pencils.

I decoupaged the bottoms of the trays.

Place the trays where you can effortlessly access them.

Pages from vintage illustrated dictionaries are ideal for decoupage projects like these three nesting trays.