DIY Jute and Wood Tray

I'm in a redecorating mind set again. "Again" usually means a constant state of mind for me. But, I'm really changing things up this time :) I'm trying to bring in more natural colors and textures into our house. Which has been way fun and I'm loving the look! Since I was in need of a tray, I decided it would be a great way to bring a big impact of texture.

 I used a 18" inch round table top and some jute/sisal from Home Depot.

 First step was to paint a one inch border around the wood, including the edge.

 Once the paint was dry, I found the center of the wood, and just started hot gluing the rope into a circle around itself. When the rope circle got bigger and bigger, I was probably gluing it every 5 inches or so, but at the beginning it was a constant stream of glue.

 For the hardware (which were also a Home Depot find), I measured where to put them, equidistant from each edge. Put a mark, and then drilled a hole for the screws.

 I then just fed the screw through the top out of the rope and into the handle.

And done! Simple as that. Took less than an hour to make.

 I was thinking that I might want to stain the edge of the wood, or even take the jute all the way down the edge, but I'm glad I ended up keeping it this way. The white against the jute is perfect. Plus, one thing of jute covered this much, I would have had to make another run to the store to get more  :)

 The texture of this jute is just amazing!

 I wish I could remember how much the rope cost, but the hardware was about $3 each, the wood top was about $7. So, all-in it was probably less than $20.

 I'm super excited to see where this ends up in our house! So far it's already been used as a tray for coffee and cookies this morning :) And yes, those cookies are as good as they look!