Design Team Member Blog Assignment - Bit of Summer Printer Tray

Do you ever see a new product at Craft Warehouse and think “that would be fun to try?”  I have, and that’s what I thought when I saw the Tim Holtz printer tray awhile back.  I just had to pick one up, and there it sat waiting for the right opportunity.  Needless to say I was excited to be selected as one of the first design team members to have a blog challenge.  

 Supplies- Pattern Paper: American Crafts and Echo Park; Diecut Chipboard Stickers: Echo Park; 

Alpha Stickers: Cosmo Cricket; Ribbon: American Crafts; 

Other: Paint, Sponges, muslin, rhinestones,

and zipper

Other side of pattern paper

When I saw what was included in the kit I knew exactly what I wanted to do.  I grabbed my printer tray and started painting right away.  Read on to see my completed project and all the details so you can create one yourself.

It all started with a blank canvas with little boxes. 

One of the features I love about the Tim Holtz printer tray is that all the little box inserts come out.  My first step was to remove each box and paint each one and the tray itself.  I did two coats on all sides.  Make sure to let the first coat dry well before applying a second coat.  Here’s a look at the tray after the paint.  

 Next, I needed to decide on a layout of the boxes.  Do this before cutting any paper so you have an idea of where your boxes will be and can get a better feel for what paper you might want where.  The package for the tray comes with an illustration of 6 possible layouts you can do with the boxes.  Or you can be adventurous like me and make up your own.  I thought it would be fun to layer some of the smaller boxes inside the larger ones to add some dimension and fun angles.  Don’t feel like you have to use all of the boxes it came with, I didn’t.  You can always save any extra boxes for another project.   

Now, it’s time to trim your paper for all those little boxes.  I started with the two largest boxes and used the striped paper since it had the boldest pattern I was going to use.  From there I just tried different pieces of paper in different boxes until I ended up with a layout I liked.  I measured the back side of the boxes to get the dimensions I needed to trim the paper to fit inside the boxes.  Once I measured I took a little off the dimensions to account for a slightly smaller space on the inside of the box.    

Once you have all your paper in place it’s time to add embellishments, photos and journaling if you want.  I chose not to use photos on my project but these are great for photos too.  Since this tray has two larger boxes, it’s nice because larger pictures can be used or you can do several smaller pictures too.  Before I could add any embellishments I needed to decide what I was going to do with the zipper, ribbon and muslin that were provided in the kit.  I knew what I was going to make with the zipper right away and the ribbon and muslin just followed that path.  I will provide details in a separate post on how to create each flower.  Once I had the flowers made I played with different layouts with several of the chipboard sticker pieces until I settled on what I wanted.  Once I was certain of my layout of the boxes, papers and embellishments, that’s when I went back and adhered everything.  I used Beacon’s 3-N-1 available at Craft Warehouse to adhere the paper to the boxes and the boxes to the tray.  All the chipboard pieces already had adhesive backs, however I used pop up glue dots (also available at Craft Warehouse) on the small flowers in the corners, the sun, butterfly and small yellow flower in the box of three flowers to add a bit of dimension.  For the banner and blue flourish sitting on top of the boxes, I used mini glue dots at the points where it would attach to the boxes to add extra hold. 

And that’s it, that’s my project.  I hope you’ve enjoyed learning about it and are inspired to create one of your own.  Please feel free to share any projects you do create here, I’d love to see.

~ Michelle Wofford ~

2011 Craft Warehouse Design Team Member

Stay tuned in this week to see a tutorial on how to create Michelle's flowers on this project!