How To Make A Bread Crate Or Serving Tray
This post is a simple tutorial for how to make a bread create or serving tray to use on your table or buffet for your next family meal or holiday event! Check out Mindi’s tips on how to use scrap lumber to build a simple bread crate that is a dual purpose serving tray!
Hello, Mindi here, from MyLove2Create. It is good to be back posting at Oh My! Creative!
Thanksgiving is upon us, and I am so excited to eat turkey, stuffing, yams, rolls, etc…. Yum.
Speaking of rolls, I am here to share How to make a Bread Crate, which will be housing my rolls for Thanksgiving this year!
How To Make A Bread Crate Or Serving Tray
This is a bit larger than a typical serving tray, so I prefer considering it a bread crate, but it’s not quite big enough to be a real create either. No matter what you choose to call this fun project, it is ideal for serving rolls, bread or even pastries! Of course, it can hold anything you want, but I opted to use it as a bread crate. Here it is holding my french bread for dinner tonight.
I am so excited to share how I made it, so lets begin…
Materials List:
- Scrap 1×8 pieces of lumber
- Small piece of plywood
- Nails & Hammer or Drill & Screws (drill will be used regardless of method you use to secure wood)
- Jigsaw
- Triangle to measure or measuring tape
- Clamps
- Paint
- Burlap & stencil for extra accent if desired
I measured and cut triangles on the ends, and then I drew where I wanted my handle onto the board. To make things go quicker, I did both boards at the same time. First I drilled holes so I could use my jigsaw to cut out the rest of the handles. If you aren’t familiar with using a jigsaw, this is something you’ll want to watch a tutorial on or have help with.
Then I cut away! The bottom handle cut a little smaller because the blade bent a little. I just kept the boards clamped together and shaved away with the jig aw until both handles were the same.
Once the ends were finished I glued and nailed on a bottom and it began to take shape to look more like a bread crate or serving tray instead of a pile of scrap lumber! The bottom piece was also an 1×8 scrap board that I cut to 10 inches long. Next, I wanted legs, so I grabbed some free 5-gallon paint sticks I had picked up at Home Depot, I cut 4 legs at 7 inches long. To make it easier, I propped up the crate on some scrap plywood and then glued and nailed on the legs.
Lastly, I added the 1/2 by 1/2 scrap pieces for the sides. They were cut at 10 inches (same as the bottom piece), and glued and nailed on, keep in mind to use smaller nails, I used 5/8 inch nails for this part. A side note: I sanded all my boards after they were cut, then I built the crate.
My plan was to stain it, I tried using some OLD dark walnut stain and it totally didn’t work, maybe because It was more like a paste than stain…hmm. Anyway, I ended up just painting over it, with white. Sometimes you just have to roll with it! For your serving tray or bread crate, you can plan ahead to stain it or use any color paint you prefer.
Next, I wanted to add some character, plain white was too boring. Due to printer issues, mine didn’t come out as dark as I wanted when I printed my saying on the burlap. You can print, use a stencil or any kind of vinyl lettering to create your message.
Here my burlap is all ready to go into the printer. I used painters tape around the edges to secure it to a regular sheet of paper, then you simply put it in the printer (make sure it is facing the right way) and print! I found both images I used at The Graphics Fairy, she has some great stuff.
It was very subtle because I am too cheap to buy more ink. I did use a sharpie to make the words stand out a little better. I had a few insane moments of thinking I might retrace the whole design, and then I got smart. Let me give you a picture of how it looks with printing on the quality setting…
See the difference? This was printed on the same printer, no lie, using the photo quality setting. Ok, so now you believe me… oh, and if you want to see this project, click Here.
I am good with it, I actually like how the words pop out, they are the most important part anyway. After I printed on the burlap I cut it to fit the ends of the fun bread serving tray. Then I simply nailed them on with carpet tacks! Easy, and simple to remove if I want to change it up.
You may have noticed these cuties on the sides. They were a spur of the moment creation. I had all these scraps of burlap after I had trimmed down the printed pieces and I couldn’t just throw them away…
So, I made some burlap flowers! I love them! There are so many cute jute flowers floating around Pinterest and so these are a spin off of those. See the scraps above, I used the strings for the petals and a small piece of burlap to hot glue them onto and, viola. Pure cuteness, out of something most people would have thrown away and I love it. Then I simply hot glued them to my crate!
I am not quite sure why they make me so happy…but they do!
I hope I have inspired you to make a fun crate! It really was pretty easy, and fun! I have a lot of other great project tutorials on my blog, you can see them Here.
Hugs,
Mindi
This serving tray or bread crate was a fun project that took a bit more work than some of our easier crafting ideas, but the result was beautiful! It can easily work for any meal or buffet!
Check out our other favorite craft projects below!
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Susan B
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Mindi, I love the bread crate!!! Sooo totally love it! You really are are amazing and so creative! You inspire me in so many ways!
Thank you so much Iuliana! That really means a lot to me!
I love the bread crate or whatever else it could be, love that it’s so versatile and could do so much to decorate or not. The little flowers are adorable. I save the burlap strings often to make tassels. You’d be surprised. Can’t stand to throw things away I might have use for in 40 yrs. lol.
Don’t think I’ll be around that long, I’m 73 now. I seem to have a penchant for wood containers. Great for decorating, carrying, toting. I’m so glad I have a hubs that can look at photos of things I see on blog land then make it for me. Sometimes we change things a little for our ideas. We make many things from pallets, sure saves on lumber costs and I like that much of the lumber isn’t too heavy to hang up a creation we’ve made from it. Happy Thanksgiving.
Thanks Jane Ellen! We must be kindred spirits, we don’t like to throw things away that might have a use and we love wood containers! Love it! I hope you have a happy Thanksgiving too!