Wood Serving Trays For Fruit And Cheese Plates

This is a long overdue blog post for sure, but one I had such a good time putting together. I love wood serving trays and we've been loving fruit, veggie, cheese plates the past few months. I think it all started last summer when I was looking for light fare that would incorporate a lot of different kinds of fresh fruits and vegetables. We started trying to eat the rainbow and began counting how many vegetables and fruit we could pack into one dinner. I had a couple of small, oblong serving trays that were so perfect for lining up a rainbow of beautiful fresh foods along with cheeses and crackers. But they weren't quite big enough and I happened upon some beautiful new wood trays one day at TJMaxx.

I thought these would be perfect for entertaining too and I could just imagine serving all sort of foods on our patio with them. I bought two matching sets of these rectangle wood trays, each came with three different sizes and I picked up two bamboo tongs for easy serving as well.

I can't wait til it warms up so that we can have friends over for dinner outside. We've been working hard getting the inside of our house pulled together so that when warmer weather gets here we'll be ready to go. It will be especially fun to have a pool party or two this summer. With a white sheet we can pretty easily pop up a movie theater in the back on the wall as well. Fun stuff.

I also found these wood fruit-shaped trays the same day and couldn't resist. The wood is so beautiful and I like the big, flat, open space on these for a nice variation from the thin rectangle trays I have quite a few of. These would work for so many things and we've been using them for our fruit and veggie cheese plates the past few weeks.

Of course, I'm especially fond of the pineapple tray. I have another small pineapple tray that this would go perfectly with. Wouldn't this be delicious covered in pineapple bites. I am totally craving pineapple and fresh fruit right now, I think because we don't have a lot in the house and it's winter and all. I think we only have apples and pears around right now.

I would love a big tray of strawberries, pineapple, oranges and more to appear in our kitchen on one of these trays right now! My mouth is totally watering just thinking about it. We need to splurge and get some pineapple soon! Actually we have some canned pineapple in the cupboard and I may just crack open a can to go with our Japanese wontons, gyoza and rice dinner. (Inside right now I'm silently screaming "Oh Yes!" - ha)

I have been refurbishing and collecting wood trays for a while now. I use them all over the house. I think I still have one little one I haven't even fixed up yet in a drawer in my craft storage. Wood trays can be quite expensive at full retail price but buying and refurbishing them from a thrift store can be quite a great deal. Most of the bowls and trays I have purchased and fixed up were all under five dollars. Here are a few other posts on beautiful wood trays and bowls.

Thrift Store Small Rectangle Tray (with DIY instructions on how to bring a crusty old tray back to life.
My dream bread bowls I saw these at ABC Home in NYC and couldn't justify the investment at the time but found something at my local thrift store just days later.

Bamboo Tray Fix-up A great thrift store find that I fixed right up and made look new again. So easy.

Woven Tray This large serving tray is perfect for transporting things outside, to the dining table or for breakfast in bed. A great deal and it was so easy to repair.