Turn A Plain Dollar Tree Butter Dish Into A Mackenzie-Childs-Inspired Piece

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Mackenzie-Childs, with its quirky down-the-rabbit-hole aesthetic and timeless farmhouse decor charm, features hand-painted designs on its wares. The pieces add touches of whimsy and warmth to a space, making them a popular option for many home decorators. However, at $130 a piece, even small accent pieces like butter dishes threaten to take too big a big chunk out of frugal-minded shoppers' budgets. Fortunately for them, it's possible to construct less-expensive mimics of the Mackenzie-Childs butter caddies they so admire thanks to the cheap craft supplies they'll find at stores like the Dollar Tree.

The basic physical design of the DT Cooking Concepts White Melamine Butter Dish resembles Mackenzie-Childs butter dishes. However, it's lacking the same decorative pattern. You can jump on the checkerboard trend in your kitchen and make the DT piece look like something Mackenzie-Childs is known for by adding some painted-on details. You'll need a couple of different types of paint to do this — white chalk paint, liquid gold leaf, and black acrylic. You also require some paint brushes, including a short-bristled brush for the checkerboard and a sponge brush. The latter you'll use for Mod Podge. 

As for the floral motifs, the easiest way to add those to the butter dish is to use craft transfers, like Joeyan Sunflowers and Bees Rub On Transfers. That said, items from Mackenzie-Childs are admired for their hand-painted look. If you have the painting skills, you can paint the florals on yourself instead of using a transfer. Sandpaper, a pencil, some scissors, a Popsicle stick, and some paint-on varnish wraps up the supplies list.

Because the butter dish cover is made of melamine, you'll need to add a coat of Mod Podge to it to give the chalk and acrylic paints something to cling to. Apply the craft adhesive onto the dish. Then, paint the lid of the dish with the chalk paint. Lightly sand the paint after that. Finally, apply a coat of gold leaf to the lip of the butter dish base.

Next, cut a couple of images out of your transfer sheet that'll fit on the dome of the butter dish. Position them where you'd like them to be, and rub the image onto the dish, using the end of the craft stick. Or if you've been looking for creative ways to use decoupage, try using that crafting technique to decorate the top of the butter dish instead of the transfers. Paper napkins are a good choice because they're thin, affordable, and often decorated with beautiful artwork.

Finally, draw the checkerboard pattern onto the lid of the dish. Don't worry about the slight imperfections in the shape of the lines. Such details drive home the impression of the piece being handmade. Next, paint every other square black, working around the flowers to avoid accidentally covering them with the paint. Or if you're less confident about your painting skills, reverse the order: Paint the checkerboard pattern first and then rub the transfer image onto the butter dish's cover. Finally, paint gold and black accents on random white squares, and then, add dashes of white paint to some of the black squares to give it a more hand-painted look.