Winter Coffee Bar and Tiered Tray. Budget Friendly and Fun to Create.

Hi Crafty Tribe! This is Artsy Maddy. And I just wanted to make a quick video for you guys. I just wanted to share this winter tiered tray that I've worked on. And just hopefully give you guys some inspiration. I'm sure a lot of you already do tiered trays. But this was my first tiered tray, so I'm really excited about it. And I can't wait to share it. So I'll start with the actual tiered tray. I got super lucky, super fortunate to be able to pick this up second hand for $20. And I was really excited about it. It was kind of a medium brown color. And I painted it with a linen white chalk paint. And then just distressed it a little bit just to give it some texture. And then a few clear coats just to protect it. Just with some clear spray from Walmart. Just like a mask finish. Just to help protect it but not have that shiny look to it. So it seems to be holding up okay. The finish is good. And I thought I would just share with you guys how fun this has been. To just be doing this collecting a little bit. And it's kind of a fun hobby, this tiered tray thing. So I'm really into it. I really enjoy it. And I can't wait to share more with you. I'm going to change this to my Valentine's stuff tonight. So I just thought I would share this before I make that changeover. And so I'm sure you're already recognizing some of the stuff. So these little owls are just the salt and pepper shakers from Dollar Tree. And I just painted them to go with this color scheme that I'm trying to have here. So I really love this peacock blue color. It's kind of my favorite color. I like to use it almost as a neutral, I guess, throughout the year. So this is just a metallic Rust-oleum turquoise spray. And it was just a really easy way to kind of revamp some things and make them go with my collection here. So I just filled in the little salt and pepper bowls with some polyfilla. And then gave them a coat of that spray paint. Actually two coats, I think. And the same thing with these. These are just some plastic snowflake ornaments from Walmart. I was able to get them on clearance at the end of the year, so that was a great deal. And you might recognize this guy too. This is just a Dollar Tree Christmas ornament. For some reason these were really yellow, so I just painted it to be more white. And a little bit of snow texture paint onto the ornament. I have that in my first video as well. I'm going to put in some clips at the end too, just to show you a few of the things that I worked on. So lots of these little fruit pine pick sort of things. So I got really lucky. I found out about this really funny salvage thrift store. It's just in a small town outside Calgary where I live. And it's actually a thrift store that's like a great big warehouse in front of a landfill site. It seems crazy, but I love the idea. They're just trying to keep things out of the landfill. So anything that can be used again, they encourage you to leave it there. And then you just can fill up a bin for $10. What I found was this really nice Bruce Pine Christmas tree. But the frame of it was bent. So we couldn't really use it as a Christmas tree anymore. But I saw the potential in it and picked it up. And some of those really good quality Christmas trees are actually just put together with thread. So it's like a big long nylon kind of fluffy thread. And they just wrap all of these pieces together onto the frame of the tree. So if you unwrap them, then you get all these picks and pieces off of it. So if you ever come across a tree like that, it might be worth picking up. Because then you'll have an endless supply of little green winter picks. And then I just covered this with a snow flock paint that I made myself. So I'll put a little clip of that as well. It's also in my first video with the Peace on Earth sign. But it's just white paint. It can be acrylic paint, latex paint, whatever you have. Or even chalk paint. And I added a little bit of flour, shaving cream, and a little bit of baking soda. Just to give it like a fluffy, snowy texture. And then just brushed it on with a chippy brush. So it was really easy, a little bit messy. I laid them all out on plastic, just so they wouldn't stick as they were drying. And it worked out pretty well. So this was like a little thrift store find. So he had a red hat and a green scarf. And again, just painting him to match my decor. So it's kind of a nice, easy way to collect things that are inexpensive. I found this little Eskimo boot at the end of year clearance, just over at my local grocery store. And a lot of the things are thrifts. This was a thrift find, a little glass snowflake candle holder thing here. And thrift finds, thrift finds. This little guy, he was only a dollar. A little thrift find too. And I just filled him with some more of those spruce and pine picks. You might recognize these two. These were from Walmart as well. And I just got them at the end of the year on clearance too. So some Christmas ornaments. They're nice and useful, though. I really like them. And this was from Ikea. I got this at the end of the year clearance as well. So this little guy, he was actually like an NHL hockey ornament. So he had like a little logo and stuff on him. So again, just giving him a paint job to make him work with my decor. And then a little bit of snowy texture paint. Just to make him look a little bit more gnomish and fun. And these were just from a local dollar store as well. Just these little snowball type things. And I found this at a thrift store for just a few dollars. And then the same week, I saw it on sale somewhere else. And it was quite expensive. So that was a great score, great find. This is also from my local dollar store. They sell these bare wood little birdhouses. So I just gave it a white paint that was watered down to be like a stain. And then glued on some Epsom salt. And then painted on some Mod Podge with glitter over top. Just to give it a little bit of glisten. And these were a great find too. These are actually party light candles that I found at a thrift store. So I can't imagine what somebody paid for those originally. But I was happy to find those. And this is just a little candy jar, a little glass jar. You sometimes see those at thrift stores. And this guy I've had for a long time. I can't remember where he came from. And this was a gift. These little silver pine cones. I can't remember which dollar store I got them at. But them too, I just gave them that snowy blocking effect on the edges. Just with that snowy shaving cream paint. And then the thing that I feel like made it all come together was this soft fabric that I actually found at our local dollar store. It's called Dollarama. And they were actually scarves. And I'm really excited about them. The texture is like butter. They're great. They were $4, so not the cheapest. But it's still pretty affordable. I cut them up into smaller pieces. I actually opened them up. They're doubled. So it actually gives you quite a bit of material for $4. It's quite a long length. And just cut them so it would be enough to layer each layer of the tear tray. And I think it just gives it kind of that cozy, wintry vibe, like a sweater sort of thing. And I got some extra. I'm going to make some pillow covers too, I think, for next year. So I'm excited about that. I think that's about it for this. If you have any questions or ideas for me for next year, please feel free to share with me. I would love to chat about it. I'm very excited. I'm finding it a really fun new hobby. I also have a hot cocoa coffee station to show you as well, before I change that over to Valentine's. So I'll just set up for that too. And then I'll just share some clips at the end of the project that I worked on for it. All right. So this is the little coffee hot chocolate bar that we set up for this January. It's been great. My youngest just loves it. It's his favorite thing in the world. So I just thought I'd kind of run you through this too. Just it coordinates with the tear tray and they're across from each other. And I just love it. It gives you like this little moment of happiness to see it and just how fun it is. If you don't have a tear tray or a coffee bar yet, maybe it's something you can work on. I'm just finding it super fun, super rewarding. So I'm glad that we did it and set aside kind of this area for that. So, again, it doesn't have to be expensive. You just start off small. Like I don't have a mug tree or anything to hold cups yet, but this works. This is great. So I actually started with this thong. It was one I was going to throw away. It got pretty beat up, the frame of it. It was just like a press board with a laminate over it. And it's a white board. And then this is the back of it. And I just painted it black to kind of look like a chalkboard sort of idea. I'm lovingly referring to this sign now as Forky from Toy Story because it was going to be trash. And then I tried to fix it up for the Trash to Treasure collab challenge. But I had so many issues with it, which I'll share with you in the later clips in the video. But just so much went wrong. I tried to put a stain over top of the laminate that was on it, and it made the laminate bubble up. But not all of it came off, just some of it. So really just having to rework everything. There was a few times where it almost ended up in the trash bin again. But I'm glad I stuck with it. I love this look. It is a double-sided sign. I don't love the other sign quite as much, but you'll see that later. So it all kind of started with these mugs. After Christmas, I think it was the week after Christmas at our local Goodwill, they had 75% off Christmas stuff. And this had been left there. I could tell by the color of the tag that for five weeks nobody bought it. And it came with plates as well. So I got it for 75% off. I think for everything it was $3 maybe for the plates and the mug. And I just thought they were super cute and just that really cozy winter vibe. And again, I just used those scarves to kind of create that cozy, cozy vibe. This is actually just a little CD case or CD holder. They used to sell them at Ikea years ago. I feel like everyone had them. I see them at the thrift store all the time. So all I did was stain it and then paint Farmer's Market on it. So I think it's going to be really interchangeable. I'm hoping to change this out too and maybe always be kind of coordinating with the tiered tray across from it. So that was just a quick little simple project. Just stained it. I'll show you that too in a clip after. And again, just lots of those pine and spruce picks with the snow sloshing on them. These are actually thrifted as well. I got these for 75% off after Christmas for like $1 I think for both of them. But they're actually kind of neat and I think I figured out how to make them. So I'm hoping to do a DIY of that by next year for sure. And I just added in a little jar of marshmallows, and some favorites, and some blueberry candy cane. And then I just have the little hot chocolate pack from Costco. And then this is just a tiny tiered tray from Ikea. So it has been sold out for a very long time and I put in a notification to be notified when they got it back in stock and that works. So if there's ever something you're wanting at Ikea and they don't seem to have it, definitely sign up for those little notifications when they get it in again. And then you just run over and grab it. So I was really happy to get that too. I'm in Canada so I want to say it was $15, maybe $17. So probably even less than that. This is just a little thrifted Jell-O tin. It's seen better days. I don't think I'd want to use it for Jell-O just because a little bit of a finish would have worn off of it. But I thought it was super cute for this. Another couple of those snowflakes from Walmart. And just a couple little finds from Walmart after Christmas was done. Just little ornaments that were on sale. These are from the Dollarama dollar store. Again, they had red scarves. So I just painted them with the peacock blue to match my theme and gave them a little bit of a glitter Mod Podge. I just added my own glitter into the Mod Podge to do that. And just a little Dollar Tree candle. Some Dollar Tree salt and pepper shakers. And this guy was a little thrift find as well. So I just painted him to match my decor. He had a red scarf I think. And that is about it for this. So just really simple. Easy to put together. Doesn't have to be expensive. This was a little thrifted find too. I don't know if you can see the texture on this, but I'd really like to do a DIY on that too. I think for next year we could do that with a Pringle can. And it looks like just a little stone texture with some glittery sparkles in it and some snow textured paint, which we've already figured that out. But that's been my first video. So yeah, I'm going to switch these over to Valentine's tonight. So I just wanted to share those with you before I finish them out. And hopefully it inspires you to maybe do a coffee bar or a food tray if you haven't already. So here's a little bit of a closer look at everything. I forgot to mention that those little snowballs are actually a spring of light. Just a little battery pack spring of light from Dollarama. And the little white snowballs above, those are just some styrofoam snowball ornaments that I found at Dollar Tree as well. And then the little wires that you see, those are actually a little spring of light as well that are just on a timer. And just that back side, so the little vase is from Dollar Tree. The little bird statue sort of thing, that was just a find as well. I think it was only a dollar. And then there's also some spring light throughout this tree. It's a little bit hard to see, but they're just on a timer as well. I was able to get those with my coupon at Costco, so those were a great deal. They were in a four pack, and the spring is quite long. This is all just one spring. So then I'll show you the actual tiered frame. It was kind of that medium brown color. I actually didn't paint it with chalk paint, I forgot. It was this thermal white stain steel sort of paint, just to freshen it up. I thought it might be a little bit more durable than chalk paint. So I just gave it a couple coats of that. And just tried to kind of follow in a circular motion with the brush strokes. And then just sanded it smooth, and did a little bit of distressing on the edges. And then I actually took, I think it was a pair of scissors, a little bit to the pillars in between, just to distress those as well. And then here's just all those first lines, so 75% off. I think they were like between three and four dollars for everything. And there's those little palm pepper shakers that I spray painted. Hopefully they'll have those again in the fall. So those were just some dollar trees. And those were the plastic snowflakes, so they were gold, and then I just painted them to match everything. Let's see what that little gnome looked like. They had about 50 of them at the thrift store, they were only a dollar. And a little birdhouse. So this is before that glitter mod podge, so this was just glue and epsom salt. And then I just went over everything with that glitter mod podge to seal it in. And then this is how to make that snow paint. So just some white paint, any white paint would do. Whatever you have, latex, acrylic, stockings. And I'm so frugal, I always get the last drop out of every bottle. So then I'm just adding some craft glue, just to bind everything together. And I'm getting a glimpse of one of my Valentine projects too. So some shaving cream. Just like a nice big kind of dollop of that. And then a little bit of baking soda. And some flour. And I'm getting the very last drop out of the paint, I guess. You just stir it up, it just takes a second, and then it'll blend together. You're just kind of wanting that nice fluffy texture of snow. And the glue makes it super sticky, so you'll see here. I think I showed you where the ends of the paints are. It's just nice and thick. And super sticky, so it doesn't come off like flossing. I think it's actually kind of better than flossing. I kind of tend to do my whole tree with it, but that would be too devastating. So I'll have to spice myself up for that. Yeah, so you can see it's just nice and sticky, but fluffy. And then I'll just show you how I put it on all those little sticks. All right, so with those pine ticks, I like to just taper down the tops of them. I think it just makes them look a little bit more realistic, I guess. I know they're just papery plastic branches, but just by tapering them, it kind of gives me a more realistic effect. And then just going with the direction of the bristles, and just using a tippy brush, and as you can see, it sticks really well. And it kind of lands as if the snow would. When you just go in the direction of the branches, it just kind of sits on top of them. And it goes really easily onto the pine cone. So it's kind of messy, but if you plan to do a bunch of them at once, then you would have a whole bunch to just do them. And then I just laid them out on plastic. I figured they would stick to whatever they're drying on, so they came off the plastic really well. So just a sheet of plastic is enough. And then here's those longer stick branches. So as you can see, it's a little bit messy, but not too bad. And then this one was kind of a furry texture. The ends were kind of frayed, but it stuck to those pretty well, too. I think, too, if you found an old wreath, you could take that apart, too, and just use the pick. It's always kind of nice to have a few extra to throw into some bowls or decorations like this sometimes. I'm so sorry my videos end up being so long. I'm still learning how to edit things right, and what to include and not to include. I think still one more minute left. So then we'll move on to 4P, just fine. So a double-sided sign, and it really had a lot of dents and damage to it, so I just had to fix it up with some wood filler. And just realizing it wasn't the best quality sign. It felt very plastic-y. I should have known just to let it go, but sometimes it's a hard one to get working on a project. If it's not going well, it's hard to give up on it. But anyway, I knew it wasn't going to be perfect, but I just kind of filled them in so they looked a little bit better and not quite as messy. So the front side of the sign was a whiteboard, and I painted that pink and did it into a valentine's sign. And then the back of the board was just a plain hardboard or pressboard on the back, so that's what I painted black to kind of mimic a chalkboard effect. So the back of the sign, I figured it would be okay. It does have those little corner staples holding it together, but I thought if I just kind of stained over everything, they wouldn't be as noticeable. So here is where I had this brilliant idea of, oh, I'll just stain everything again with some Minwax oil-based paint. But I wasn't really thinking very clearly because this isn't really wood. It's just like a pressboard with a laminate on it. So this is where everything kind of went wrong, and the oil-based paint wouldn't soak into anything, and it started to peel up the laminate that was on top of the pressboard. And so I'm just kind of desperately trying to salvage this piece, and so I'm just trying to see if I can paint over what's there. So here you can see, like, the laminate is just peeling up. It's just awful. So then I just refrained from trying and went to bed for the night, woke up fresh the next day, and I thought, I will just paint this frame. And so that's what I did. I just painted it. I was too frustrated to videotape that all, but I just painted it with a dark brown and then a lighter brown and then did some white drybrushing over top. So here is this beautiful design I found on Etsy for Frosty's Snowflake Cafe, and the great news is if you have a Cricut machine, you can probably just purchase this and print it out no problem. So I don't have a Cricut, so I'm just drawing this onto the board. Now, I know that a lot of people aren't able to just draw it onto the board or copy, but if you had a bigger sign like this, they do some larger prints at Staples. They call them engineer prints. So you could just get it printed out for a couple dollars, bigger size, and then just use some carbon paper underneath. You have to kind of move the carbon paper as you're going, but you could just transfer the design or use some chalk on the back of it and then just draw over the sign with a pencil and transfer it that way. But yeah, anyway, just going over the sign, these are the metallic markers from Dollar Tree, and I was actually really happy with them. They turned out great. I think it kind of mimics the chalk effect really well. And here's that CD folder that I turned into the farmer's market. It's kind of a sole basket sort of thing, or sole plate, I guess you'd call it. So I just did a word search for farmer's market word art and then just printed it out and put some chalk on the back and transferred the design. So we moved into our house in 2010, so I thought that would be kind of fun to add that onto there too. And I tried the white metallic marker, but it wasn't quite enough coverage, I felt like, and the chalk was kind of drying it up a little bit, so I just decided to paint it with chalk paint instead because you can't get better coverage than chalk paint. So yeah. So hopefully you guys are brave enough to just hand-paint things. It takes practice, but you never get any better if you don't practice, and it's just paint, so don't be afraid of it. It's actually really therapeutic if you just don't look for perfection, just go for it. It's supposed to be hand-painted, hand-crafted, so those little imperfections are part of the beauty. So I might go back and discuss this after. I was just kind of trying to get this project all together, but I'm hoping to be able to use this crate with every kind of hot chocolate bar or coffee bar that I do, so I might go back and discuss it a little bit with some white paint, but we'll see. So if you have made it to the end of this video, that is incredible because this is so much longer than I thought it would be, but thank you so much. It means the world to me that you watched this, and I'm hoping to be able to upload some videos in the next couple days with some Valentine stuff, so if you'd like to see that, then for sure subscribe and turn your notifications to all so that you won't miss those. I'll just finish up with some more close-up shots of everything, and hopefully you found some inspiration and are not intimidated by a food crate or a hot chocolate bar. That's super fun. It adds such a nice warm touch to your kitchen. I was hoping to add a little video of my youngest son drinking his hot chocolate, but he wouldn't cooperate this time, so maybe next time, maybe with the Valentine bonus information. I hope you all are well and being creative and we'll talk to you again in the next one. Thank you so much for watching.