Another month has passed… So it’s high time for another Inspired by! Each month Riikka and I challenge each other to create something with a particular theme or thing in mind. This theme or thing can be anything and this time we were both feeling we wanted to alter something. We agreed that ‘something’ to be a serving tray.

It was Riikka who suggested the tray. Little did she know that I have had a vintage serving tray in my attic for way too long, waiting for some kind of alteration. This tray was my mom’s and had been used in my childhood home. It had cup stains and some of the inlay was chipped. I think I had once thought I would paint it white and then use it. But I just never took the time and let’s be honest: I never use a serving tray.

OK, so this is what the tray looked like:

I had two weeks of non-stop deadlines and work before I made time to alter this tray. So when I made the time, I was tired and I really just wanted to play…

I thought it would be smart to coat it with gesso first:

Well… That looked pretty awful… It actually took a couple of coats before it looked only halfway decent.

While the gesso was drying I had time to think about what to do next. And I was feeling that I really, really wanted to try out the PanPastels that I’ve had for a while now, but haven’t used on anything yet.

I went to watch Donna Downey’s PanPastel 101 first. In it she shows and tells all the basic information about how to use PanPastels and she gives an idea about what you could do with them.

One of the pieces she does in the video is a field of stamped poppies, with a PanPastel background. I had a blue and a greenish PanPastel in my collection and also black and white, so I could do this:

I wasn’t impressed…

I thought about what to do next. Donna Downey had used water colours on her poppy field and I remembered the Neocolor II’s that I have and hardly ever use…

And then… I got carried away and forgot to take photos of the next steps!

I did every thing in one go, except for the writing. I couldn’t decide what to do, but the next day I thought I’d push myself a bit and handwrite/paint it with the Neocolor II’s as well.

It didn’t turn out great, but I’m OK with that, because I tried something new. In fact: I’m extremely OK with that!

Now hurry and take a look at Riikka’s awesome and slightly more useful tray!!!