Printers Tray

I found a cardboard printers tray at my local scrapbook store (Scraptivate.com.au) that I couldn't resist. I thought it would make a great display piece for my studio.

 I glued the whole thing together then covered it with torn, scrunched pieces of tissue paper. I wanted it to have a slightly roughened texture.

 Next I used green acrylic paint to color the whole thing. I then went through my stash of craft stuff and selected all of the little embellishments that I wanted to use. I didn't worry what color they were because I would alter them later. When I saw the pile of things I was going to use, especially the flowers I realized the tray was the wrong color. I went over it with Folk Art metallic paint in the color champagne. It gave the tray a more neutral appearance so the embellishments would stand out more.

Some of the things I chose for the tray were colored with alcohol inks. The gold square was painted with lumiere metallic paint. The butterflies were done with brown and green alcohol ink but later on they seemed a little dark compared to the rest of the tray so I lightened them with a pink brilliance inkpad that still allowed some of the alcohol ink to show through. The bird is one of my larger paintings that I have photographed and printed out. I then glued it to a domino and covered the painting with dimensional magic gloss paint. I painted the frog with acrylic paints. The dragon fly corner is an old provo craft wood product from my stash that I have painted with acrylics. You could use an easel to display the tray or hang it on the wall like I have done.