Faux Marble Tray-an Easy DIY

Sharing tips and techniques on how to paint faux marble. This faux marble tray was made from an old acrylic box frame and incorporates easy marbleizing techniques.

Can you believe that this great ‘marble tray’ is made from one of those very inexpensive acrylic frames?  I’ve always loved the look of marble. As such, it’s no surprise to me that this material is quite popular in the design world right now. Read on and see how to DIY this Faux Marble Tray.

While Kate was packing up her stuff to head back to college this fall, she did a little cleaning up and discarding of items she no longer needed or wanted. Her bag of discards included this old 5 X 7 Acrylic Box Frame.

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For reasons only known to the Kismet angel that sits on my shoulder, I saw the opportunity to transform the acrylic box into a little tray for my desk. And more importantly, to try my hand at marbleizing.

My friend Sherry at The Savvy Apron had great success with her faux marble technique, so I was encouraged to try it.  I followed her tips and am absolutely thrilled with this faux marble tray that I made.

I have to tell you that I had such a fun time doing this little marble tray and now am looking for more opportunities to marbleize stuff. It was very simple and forgiving.  If a mistake is made, then you could just paint over it and start again. 

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What you Need to Make a Faux Marble Tray:

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• An item to marbleize
• White paint to cover your item.  I used Rustoleum 2X Spray Paint White
• Acrylic paint in white and black.  I used Acrylic Paint 2 oz., Snow White by Americana and
  Acrylic Paint 2 oz., Lamp Black by Americana. 
• Acrylic paint in gold for trim. I used DecoArt Dazzling Metallics Paint, 2 oz., Glorious Gold.
• Feather
• Sponge, I did cut a little triangle out of to get in the tight spaces…It looked like a little pac-man.
• Spray bottle with water
• Paper towel
• Frogtape Delicate Masking Tape, Yellow, which worked perfectly!  I was very hesitant to put tape on my recently painted/marbleized surface so I did a test run by spray painting a piece of plastic and then putting this tape on it.  I was so very happy when I was able to remove the tape without pulling off any of the recently applied paint. 

How to Paint Faux Marble:

• Paint your entire piece with white paint. Because it was plastic, I used a paint with a primer in it.
• Mix 2-3 shades of gray, from light to dark using your white and black paints (love my Pottery Barn catalog palate?)

Using your feather, draw some random lines in the different gray colors.  Because my piece was so small, I opted to have my lines go in one general direction for the most part.

After it sets for about a minute, but before it is fully dry, lightly spritz the area with your water bottle.

Then take your sponge and gently dab the veins…don’t blur all of them…just here and there.

If you think you have too much gray and if it’s still wet then ‘pull’ it off with a sheet of damp paper towel.  If it’s dry, then sponge on a little white paint where it’s needed. You can see towards the end of the video below where I ‘whitened’ up a few spots and it really improved the marble look.

Towards the end, hit up a few spots with your feather to give a little more definition where needed

I let it dry for a good day and then taped off the bottom inch of my Faux Marble Tray with the Frog Tape Delicate Masking Tape. Then I painted the top with DecoArt Metallic Paint in Glorious Gold. It took a  couple of coats to thoroughly cover the marble underneath.

Once done, I sealed the entire piece in polyurethane and added little rubber feet to the bottom so it wouldn’t slide around on my glass top desk.

So, here’s the video on how to paint faux marble to show you the process. Originally it was a bit on the long side, so I shortened it by speeding it up.  However, I think you can still get an idea of how I did the marbleizing from the video.

If you’d like to refer back to this post on how to paint faux marble, bookmark this page or pin the following image.

So, my friends, this was a quick, easy and fairly immediately gratifying project. Give it a whirl!

If you loved this faux marble project, you might enjoy some other faux projects! Turn an old, gnarly tub in into a lovely faux copper tub with a little paint. Or, use paint and glue to create faux, embellish concrete planters.

Try Your Hand at Faux Marble…you’ll love it!

Thanks for making my day by SHARING!!