Upcycled Wooden Thrift Store Trinket Bowls — Sum of their Stories Craft Blog

2 old wooden thrift shop dishes painted to give them a new look

Today is National Thrift Store Day over in the US!

We don’t have thrift stores here in the UK but we have a pretty close alternative, Charity Shops, and I’m a massive fan. You can donate bags of unwanted items any time and whilst you are there have a quick browse and come away with something perfect for an upcycle. I mostly buy clothes in Charity shops, for refashioning mostly although occasionally I find a gem ready to wear just as it is. As all the profits from any purchase goes to the charity that run the shop it feels like you make a small donation to the charity and get something for free! I do always browse the ‘bric a brac’ shelves though, you never know what you will spot. These wooden dishes have been in my “perfect for a craft project one day” box for a LONG time, I’m talking years!

So I was delighted to drag them from the box to join in with The Pinterest Challenge this month as the theme is Thrift/Upcycle. I had quite a lot of Pinterest inspiration for these, I looked at several trinket dish and bowl designs. These Jewellery dishes, these upcycled wooden bowls and these wooden pineapple bowls. The Pinterest Challenge is hosted by Alexandra from Eye Love Knots and is a monthly themed challenge which gets us to look at things we’ve pinned and actually give them a go.

Not everything went right first time with this project, stick with me as it all came out ok in the end!

To upcycle these wooden trinket bowls I used:

Fine Sandpaper
Grey Primer
Pink Acrylic Paint
Copper Enamel Paint (I couldn’t find a link to the exact Plasti-kote one I used, I’ve had it for years, but this looks similar)
Lime Green Acrylic Paint
Uni Fine Paint Marker
White Spray Paint
Crystal Clear Protective Coat
A fine paint brush

This seems like an eclectic mix of products right? I was really just using what I had. I had to isolate a few weeks ago and so shopping wasn’t possible. Just using what you already have is challenging but also fun as it forces you to be a bit inventive.

I had these 2 bowls, one a leaf shape and one a rounded triangle.

First job is to give the wooden bowls a light sanding.

Next give the bowl a coat of primer and then once that is dry a coat of your base colour.

As you can see here, my primer was grey. I gave the round/triangle bowl 2 coats of pink acrylic paint next.

Geometric Design Wooden Dish Upcycle

Let’s look at that round/triangle bowl first. I went for a simple geometric design.

So after 2 coats of pink acrylic paint I marked the bowl into 3 sections very lightly in pencil and then painted one section with the copper enamel paint. I just used a regular small paintbrush, it needed 2 coats. Once that was dry I painted another section in a lime green acrylic paint, again it needed 2 coats.

I finished the bowl by painting the flat top edge in copper.

The bowl was matt apart from the copper enamel section but I felt the pink and lime would work better if they were glossy. I forgot to take a photo of the bowl before I gave it a coat of clear sealer, I was so busy taking a million photos of the other dish I didn’t realise I’d not taken many of this one! Doh!

I absolutely love this glossy finish. I thought the matt paint would look good with the shiny copper but it just wasn’t working for me. The Crystal Clear spray sealer just made it all come together somehow. It’s also much more durable now which is a bonus. The spray sealer says touch dry in 30 minutes and it was but it does need several days to “go off” properly before you start using your pretty new trinket dish.

Cooper and White Doodle Effect Wooden Leaf Dish Upcycle

Next let’s look at the leaf shaped dish. This one gave me a little trouble but turned out well in the end. I just didn’t like my original idea once it was done. It just didn’t work for me. I thought about skipping these photos and just showing you the finished idea but I actually quite enjoy seeing other people’s fails sometimes. A) it’s nice to know everyone has them and B) You might really like this idea even though I didn’t!

So take 1 of the leaf shaped wooden dish involved painting the copper enamel paint in curved lines. I was going for a Art Deco vibe. Honestly in this photo I’m now thinking it wasn’t too bad, maybe the lines should just have been thinner or the bowl should have been painted white first instead of grey?

Anyway, I just wasn’t feeling it so I painted over the whole thing in the copper enamel. Unfortunately this left me with another issue - it wasn’t really smooth enough now to leave just like that. (This picture also makes it look super pink, it’s just the light, it’s definitely copper colour in real life!)

Still isolating at this point I rummaged in my craft drawers and cupboards once more and found a fine white paint marker.

Anyone who visits here regularly will know I do love a good doodle so I settled on a random doodle pattern to cover any unevenness on the dish.

As soon as I started I knew I was going to love this finally! The best thing about doodling to decorate something is that there is no right or wrong, you just start and doodle whatever takes your fancy. Flowers, leaves, curved lines, twirls… anything you like. Even a mistake like that big blob that came out of my paint marker unexpectedly can just be incorporated into the design! I guess if you really hated something you’d drawn you could paint over it in the copper enamel and have another go, I just enjoyed going with the flow.

white doodles on a copper painted background

I left the paint marker to dry overnight, even though it all felt dry much sooner and then gave it all a coat of the same clear glossy varnish as before, to protect the design from wear and tear.

As an afterthought, and once I was able to get back out to the shops I picked up some more white spray paint and painted the underneath of this leaf dish in white. It does look better than the grey - one time that “only using what you have” has let me down!

So that’s it, 2 plain wooden dishes from the Charity Shop transformed into 2 very different but equally pretty trinket dishes.

before and after, plain wooden dishes upcycled

I really enjoyed transforming these simple plain old wooden dishes and making them a little different. It was also great to challenge myself to (almost) only use supplies I already had.

Now let’s take a look at the other contributions to this month’s Pinterest Challenge: