DIY Love You S’more Serving Tray (Easy Cricut Project)

Learn to make a delightful s’more serving tray using an inexpensive wood tray, adhesive vinyl, and a Cricut cutting machine. Fill the tray with delectable individual s’more kits for family and friends and make memories around the fire.

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Making Memories and Enjoying Ooey Gooey Goodness

Making smores with family and friends around a fire is a fun way to make memories any time of year, from a cold winter night to a warm summer evening. Who doesn’t enjoy roasting marshmallows over an open flame while debating the ideal amount of toasting? Using an indoor s’mores maker (or the microwave) just isn’t the same!

Do you like barely toasted marshmallows or crispy edges? Do you sandwich the chocolate and marshmallows between two graham crackers or do you prefer an open-faced dessert? A beauty of smores is that everyone can make their own s’mores creation based on their preferences.

Love You S’more Serving Tray Project Overview

Our family says “Love You More” to one another. My kids have not realized that they cannot win this battle (when they have their own children they will finally realize that I love them more!). Because of this saying, I thought a Love You S’more tray would be a great way to feature the saying on a serving piece.

I started with an inexpensive unfinished wood tray from target. Using a mix of white acrylic paint and water, I white-washed the wood and then applied vinyl decals that I designed and cut using my Cricut Maker.

The tray holds 6 individual s’more kits made from paper berry baskets filled with graham crackers, chocolate and marshmallows. There’s room on the tray for the roasting sticks and plenty of napkins since s mores are quite messy! This makes an adorable serving set.

How to Make a S’more Serving Tray

Here’s What I Used

Materials

• 12″ x 16″ unfinished wood tray
• White acrylic craft paint
• Water
• Black permanent vinyl
• Transfer tape for vinyl
• Clear acrylic protective coating
• Paper berry baskets
• Deli wax paper squares
• S’mores kit

Tools

• Small container for mixing paint and water
• Foam sponge paint brush
• Cricut Design Space software
• Cricut Maker
• 12″ x 24″ standard grip mat
• Fine point blade for the Maker
• Weeding and scraping tools
• Roasting sticks
• Respirator

Project Steps

Note: these instructions assume you are familiar with using Cricut Design Space software and a Cricut Maker, or other electronic cutting machine.

1. Prepare White-Wash Paint Mix

I created a white wash for the unfinished wood tray by mixing equal parts white acrylic craft paint and water in a small container.

2. Apply Paint 

Using a sponge foam brush was an easy way to apply the paint/water mixture to the wood tray to give the tray a white-washed appearance. Make sure to let the wood dry before applying the vinyl, especially since the paint is watered down.

3. Design Vinyl Decal

Using the Cricut Design Space software on my computer, I design the “Love You S’more” vinyl decal. “I Love Glitter” is one of my favorite fonts. This font is available for download on dafont.com. If you’re not familiar with uploading a new font, Jennifer Maker has a thorough tutorial on how to upload fonts to Cricut Design Space.

I typed the phrase “Love You S’more” on my project canvas in Design Space and then added a flourish at the start and end of the phrase and hearts between the words. With the “I Love Glitter” font, the beginning flourish is the [ key, the ending flourish is the ] key and the solid heart is the * key.

I also had to use the character spacing option in Cricut Design Space to reduce the space between the letters so that the cursive letters were connected.

Once my spacing was final, I welded the letters together, resized the text box to 12.743″x1.2″ and duplicated the text box since I was cutting a decal for each of the two long sides of the smore serving tray.

4. Cut Vinyl Design

Because the design was over 12″ long, I had to cut the vinyl using the long Cricut cutting mat. I stuck a piece of Cricut Premium Vinyl (permanent) to the cutting mat, loaded the mat onto the Cricut Maker, and then sent the design to the machine for cutting. The cut settings were: Cricut Premium Vinyl material, default pressure, and a fine-point blade.

5. Weed Design

After the Maker was done cutting the vinyl, I unloaded the cutting mat. Then I removed the cut vinyl from the mat (I cut a rectangle around the finished design and saved the excess vinyl for another project). Next I proceeded to weed the excess vinyl that was not part of the design.

I used Cricut weeding tools (the tweezer and the pick) to help remove the smaller pieces of vinyl.

6. Cut and Apply Transfer Tape

To transfer the cut vinyl phrase to the tray, I used transfer tape. Yrymht Transfer Tape for Vinyl is one of my preferred transfer tapes. The reason for this is that the tape is clear and it contains grid lines to help with alignment.

I cut two piece of the transfer tape equal to the size of each vinyl design. After removing the backing from the transfer tape, I applied it to the top of the vinyl design. Then I used the scraper tool to make sure the transfer tape stuck to the vinyl design. I next turned the transfer tape over and removed the backing from the original piece of vinyl so that only the vinyl letters remained stuck to the transfer tape.

7. Mark Placement on Tray Sides

Because I wanted my design centered on the long sides of the S’more Serving Tray, I determined the center point of my design (which was right over the left part of the “you”). In addition, I identified the center of the tray side and used a pencil to make a faint dot to mark the center location on both sides of the tray.

Then I then decided where I wanted the left and right flourishes to be located in order to center the design vertically and ensure it was level. Using the pencil, I marked the two end points with a dot. This was done on both sides of the tray.

8. Apply Design to Tray

Using the placement dots I made in the prior step, I carefully lined up the vinyl design and affixed it to the side of the tray. I used the Cricut scraper tool to rub the transfer tape in order to help ensure all of the vinyl stuck to the wood. After doing so, I carefully removed the transfer tape, leaving only the design on the wood. I erased all the pencil reference marks too.

9. Apply Protective Top Coat

To help protect the wood, I applied two coats of Krylon Clear Acrylic Coating. This helped make the tray moisture-resistant (but not waterproof).

My lungs are important to me, so I wore a respirator and sprayed outside in a well-ventilated area. Make sure you follow the safety instructions on your specific can.

Per the directions on the can, I shook the can for 2 minutes. I sprayed in sweeping motions 10″-12″ from the surface of the tray. I applied multiple thin coats back-to-back without allowing the coating to dry between coats. The Krylon coating was dry enough to handle in 2 hours.

10. Create S’more Kits

I was excited to use my new Love You S’more tray. My daughter had some friends over to watch a movie in the backyard. I thought this was a perfect time to make s’mores in our fire pit and to showcase my new tray!

I assembled individual s’more kits using these cute little berry baskets lined with deli paper. Each kit contained graham crackers, chocolate bar squares and marshmallows. I placed these on my Love You S’more serving tray, added roasting sticks for the marshmallows, and a generous pile of napkins.

Print DIY S’More Serving Tray Project

Other Ingredients

Do you make s’mores with ingredients other than graham crackers, chocolate, and marshmallows? For instance, do you make them with peanut butter cups, bananas, white chocolate, or caramel? Do use a tray, create a s mores bar, or make a s mores station? Let me know in the comments below so our family can try out your suggestions!

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