Not Related to Letterboxing

These pictures are of an Artist Tray that I made for my brother for his birthday. He is an avid bird-watcher and, wanting the avent of Spring to come NOW, I made this tray delightfully colorful.

Most of the paper used was from the new Conservatory Line from 7 Gypsies. I fell in love with this paper when I first laid eyes on it. The middle squares use a large scrap of Cloud paper I had left over from something and the words "Birdy Fly Away Home" scroll across the bottom of the four panels. The two collage ends were done from leftover collage sheets from Altered Pages, free stickers that came in the mail, an alphabet letter that I didn't know why I had bought, a bit of bling, and the bird images are cut from the back of a wall calender. The inner squares are meant to be airy and free graced only with the small images of gold and silver bird charms flocking on a breeze. Around the outside edge, I glued a ribbon vine and added 3D paper flowers in yellow, blue, and purple.

In two opposite corners, I simply put pictures of birds close up. These images were cut from the wall calender that I used for the smaller images in the collage squares. Not wanting to take away from their natural grace, I just added a few seeds in the corner...black oil sunflower seeds that my Mom was using to feed the birds this winter. They are merely glued into the corner in an interesting pattern.

In the other two opposite corners, I decided to focus on the night. In the upper corner, I stamped a hand carved stamp of a crow/raven and embossed it with a black sparkle powder from Ranger. The moon image was downloaded from the internet and some crystal stars completed the look. In the lower corner, I used the same embossing powder to make the dark tree. I drew the tree free hand with a Versamark pen then embossed. I used sticker crystals to form a moon then added an Owl (a button with the shank removed) to the limb. You can just see in the upper left corner of the photo that a Luna Moth is stuck between panels. I wanted this to tie these night squares into the brighter daytime colors. Unfortunately, the Moth and the dragonfly (shown in the top photo) did not stick very well. I removed them and only left the bluebird in place.

I just love thinking up themes to do with these Letterbox/Artist Trays. They really spark my imagination. I had a great time making this and was happy to hear that it somewhat survived the trip to my brother (a few of the paper flowers popped off). He has it hanging in his craft room to brighten up the basement.