DIY custom tea tray sets

Have you noticed that Christmas is right around the corner? I always have lots of plans to create homemade gifts and this year, with a little push from the talented ladies joining the Handmade Christmas 2016 blog hop, I can actually say that I already have two gifts ready by mid-October: I created some tea tray sets, one for my sister in law and another one for my cousin.

If you want to find out how I made them, read on.

I started with a plain wood tray, a wood spoon and a cork hot pad. They were all purchased at the Portuguese equivalent of the dollar store, so pretty inexpensive. 

I had in my stash a set of adhesive fabric and matching regular fabric, so I decided to use those. I bought the adhesive fabric at a regular craft store and I had never worked with it before, but now I'm a fan. It feels just like normal fabric but adheres perfectly to the surfaces without any hassle or ugly air bubbles.

First I covered the bottom of the tray with the adhesive fabric, and then, because the adhesive fabric was not as large as the tray and I had to use two pieces of fabric, I glued on some lacy ribbon to hide the "seam".

Here's the finished tray:

For the spoon, I just cut a thin strip of the adhesive fabric, folded it bias-tape-style and pulled it through the hole in the spoon: 

For the hot pad I glued a circle of adhesive fabric over it: 

To complete the set. I sewed a fabric bag, using regular fabric. My tutorial for the bag can be found here.

Here is the first tray set, ready to be wrapped: 

For the second set, instead of the wood spoon, I decided to add more hot pads: 

Everything was made in exactly same way, even though the tray's shape is slightly different. And I also made a bag for this set, though for some reason it failed to appear in the photos.

Here are the two finished sets: 

Overall, they are very easy to make and I think they will be perfect as Christmas gifts. 

Below you can check all the amazing creations shared in the Handmade Christmas 2016 blog hop so far:

An InLinkz Link-up

Have a wonderful weekend,