Sad Clearance Tray to Magazine Rack

Our magazine situation is out of control. Not that we buy a lot of magazines, it's just that the ones we do get tend to grow and reproduce when they live in our bathroom. The way our master bath is laid out, the toilet is in its own little room (think closet). It's nice, but because of that, there's really no room for anything else. So the three magazines that turned into 15 (not kidding) were really bugging us.

So I started dreaming up ways to decrease the magazine clutter because eliminating it all together just wasn't going to happen. I knew a wall-mount magazine rack was what we needed but I refused to pay full-price for a pre-made one...so you know what happens next...
I started looking for a cheap serving tray that I could turn into my own version of a magazine rack. Then I ran across this price tag the other day at one of my favorite decor dives. To be honest, I'm such a tightwad that I really didn't want to pay more than $3...but this tray was sturdy and well made and $6 isn't too crazy. Plus, those magazines had to go!

The before. First I primed it with Kilz spray paint and then gave it a good coat of Rustoleum's Heirloom White spray paint.

I did feel a little better knowing I had clearance paint at home to use on the project. 50 cents for paint!! I'm not an impulse buyer, but it's difficult to keep me from the "oops paint" section of Home Depot.

I didn't have any paint brushes small enough for the job I wanted to do so I swiped one from an old make up kit I had tucked away. A nice Merle Norman angled brush. I know, I know. Look away...

I picked out my stencil online and first tried tracing onto wax paper with the intention of cutting it out...but then soon realized that there was no way I could cut those rounded edges well. If you like this stencil you can find it here.

(I really do know how to trace...those black streaks were to show me where I had already traced...haha)

So then I remembered a tutorial I had seen from Infarrantly Creative where she used pencil to transfer stencil to a painted surface. See her really great idea and step-by-step here.

I followed her steps and the pencil transferred the stencil perfectly and quickly!

Then I just filled it all in using my oops paint and make up brush. After it was finished it still needed "something" so I added some fleurs using another (real) stencil I had on hand.

The tray was cute now, but it wasn't going to hold magazines to the wall very well as is. So using some wood glue, I added some leftover moulding we had in the garage to the front of the tray and let it dry overnight.

The finished product. The arrow is showing you the moulding in the background...that's the project that gave me some leftover moulding to work with. It's our breakfast room chair rail that is a work-in-progress.

And I'm not showing it to you mounted because, well, you don't want to see my toilet. But here she is hard at work holding the two publications you will always find in my house: the BIBLE and Texas Monthly.

The only thing I purchased was the tray for $6.80. Everything else - paint, primer, wood glue, moulding - I had on hand. Not too bad for a fun and easy project that will really help us organize a small space!

I'm linking to:

CSI Project (sorry girls, couldn't get the button to load)