Dollar Store Tray Becomes Holiday Wall Hanging

Like many of you, I'm sure, I like to roam the aisles of hardware stores, office supply stores, and dollar stores to find interesting and affordable items to alter or work into my art. I recently found these great decorative tin serving trays in my local Dollar Tree and grabbed up about a dozen for an idea yet to be born for my All Things Tim Group.

I decided on a wall hanging and things started to fall into place. Here's what I came up with.

It may not be the perfect artist's composition, but I am happy with it and can't wait to take down all my fall decorations and hang this baby up!

Like I said, it started with this rectangular serving tray. Add some holiday paper from Tim Holtz's Seasonal Paper Stash and it's starting to feel festive.

I scuffed up the back of the tray where I was adhering this plaid flannel ribbon just to make sure the surface wasn't too slick. This looks pretty nasty, so I cut a piece of felt and glued it over everything.

From the craft store, I snatched up some inexpensive mini ornaments. I liked these because I don't have any vintage ones of my own and these sort of have the look I was after. The pine and berry stem came from the craft store too. Is it a stem? A spray? A pick? I don't know.

I cut a snowman out of grungeboard from Tim's Sizzix Alteration's die "Winter Wonder." I painted the hat and the nose and the arms of a second snowman and layered them over the top, but not until I painted the base snowman white, inked the edges then applied Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint generously and let it dry. So cool!

I just got this new "Holiday Lamppost" die (Sizzix Alterations) and LOVE it! Here I cut it from grungeboard, painted it black then crackled it too. I wanted an icy look and I think it worked nicely. The "glass" in the lamp is a piece of clear plastic packaging cut to fit behind the die opening. I colored it with Sunshine Yellow alcohol ink with a felt blending tool and let it dry before adhering it behind the lamp.

After antiquing some lace with Antique Linen, I hot-glued it across the bottom of the tray, then adorned the lower corner with some Tim Holtz buttons and a glittery snowflake.

Also from Tim's Seasonal Paper Stash, I cut this sheet music page, crumpled it and inked it. The number 25 came from the stash as well. I glued it behind a Idea-ology fragment and hung it with a trinket pin.

In the upper left corner I attached this cluster. The paper is from the seasonal stash again and is mounted on a piece of Kraft Core (Nostalgic Collection) Core-dinations cardstock. Love this stuff! A swivel clasp attaches to a Christmas muse token (both Idea-ology goodness) and the whole thing is hung from a hinge clip at the top.

Here's another look at the whole thing put together. It makes me want to pull out all the Christmas decorations today!