If you caught my Summer Home Tour last week (what!? you missed it! No worries, you can see it here), then you probably noticed the painted wicker chargers I hung above our fireplace mantel. It was a really simple project that added just the right tribal touch I needed for my summer decor, and today I’m going to show you how I made them!

If you’ve been a reader for a while, you might remember these wicker chargers from the first #SwapItLikeItsHot thrift store makeover event that I took part in. I transformed them into a tiered serving tray and a cork memo board, both of which you can see here. Well, truth be told, the tiered serving tray didn’t hold up too well, and when I was shopping around the house for items to use for my tribal-inspired summer mantel, my eyes fell on these trays and the proverbial lightbulb went off.

Each tray got a fresh coat of white spray paint (I used Rustoleum Universal Satin paint & primer in white), and once they were dry, I taped off a design on each with my trusty roll of FrogTape I received at Haven a few years ago.

I used a paintbrush to apply a couple coats of black acrylic craft paint. I peeled off the tape while the black paint was still slightly wet and set the chargers aside to dry completely.

The wicker can be a bit tricky to paint with a paintbrush, but I figured this going in and decided I wouldn’t worry too much about achieving perfect results. Using a smaller paintbrush makes it easier to get in between the woven portions. If I had been feeling ambitious, I could have taped off the portions I wanted to keep white and then gone over the designs with black spray paint, but I preferred to do it by hand.

Overall, I really like how these turned out. They add a neat pop of pattern and texture to our walls, and feel just right for summertime!

A note about hanging these: I applied adhesive-backed felt to the backs of the chargers so the wicker won’t scrape up our walls. Then I used a set of Command Picture Hanging Strips to attach each wicker charger to the wall. I attached the Picture Hanging Strip to the felt, which was probably not the best idea because both of these chargers fell off the wall. I’d recommend stringing a loop of ribbon through a piece of wicker and hanging from a hook or nail instead.