The Sky is the Limit Printer's Tray

About a year ago I stumbled onto one of my luckiest treasure finds ever at our local Goodwill store. For a mere $7.00 I snatched up this amazing authentic printers tray, I knew it would make an incredible upcycle project for my home someday. So then I waited, waited for the perfect project to maximize its potential. Then there it was, a Jillibean design team forum post with March's Designer Challenge: Use as many Jillibean papers on one project as possible and still make it look good. I instantly knew that was the project for my printer's tray! So I began by painstakingly taking measurements of each opening, and logged them on a diagram sketch I had made of the tray.

A favorite photo of my son wearing his Dad's headphones, that smile gets me every time.

Then I decided to add the 3D hot air balloons so that I could get more papers on the project :)

Another favorite photo of my husband Scott and my son Gabriel at the fair last summer on the carousel. So love that moment captured!

The color families idea came during the process, I just happened to wonder what it would look like if I grouped papers by color. I really loved how that came together, then I selected a gingham pattern in each color family color to mat the photos on. 

I still cannot believe my daughter Aspen is 18 now, where did the time go? I love this photo with her, she looks stunning in this photo from her Sr. Homecoming.

 In the past I had cut photos and placed them into the trays, but this tray had a slant in each compartment. So I decided to try a different approach with this one and see how it would look with the photos laying over top. I was happy with the photos on top, and then I didn't have to cut them into segments.

How do teenagers take the most amazing photos of themselves? I have no idea, but Aspen looks so beautiful in this one.

This photo is from last summer at the Richwood County Fair, my niece Addy took it and it is one of my all time favorite photos. I was so excited to be able to capture this moment together on the big slide.

I had to add some orange in but wanted to stick with an odd number of photos for balance.

The project used 78 Jillibean patterned papers from 23 different collections! A perfect example of how well Jillibean products can be combined, Jill uses the same reds, browns & greens in almost every collection. So old Jillibean lines mix wonderfully with new lines. Love that about Jillibean!

Here is the collections list used:

1)      Chicken Noodle Soup

2)      Old World Cabbage Soup

3)      Soup Staples I

4)      Atomic Soup

5)      Dutch Mustard Soup

6)      Pasta Fagioli Soup

7)      Watermelon Gazpacho

8)      Sweet & Sour Soup

9)      Apple Cheddar Soup

10)   Hearty Barley Soup

11)   Game Day Chili

12)   Homemade 6 Bean Soup

13)   Southern Chicken Dumpling Soup

14)   Neapolitan Bean Bisque

15)   Christmas Eve Chowder

16)   Macho Nacho Soup

17)   Coconut Lime Soup

18)   Country Pumpkin Chowder

19)   Grandma’s Lima Bean Soup

20)   Winter Tortellini & Spinach Soup

21)   Soup Staples II

22)   Fresh Vegetable Soup

23)   Irish Farmhouse Soup

(A few are hidden behind the photo mats in the picture)

Other Jillibean products:

Pea Pods: Homemade 6 Bean Soup

Bakers Twine: Orange/Yellow; Red/Brown; Turquoise/Green

Other products: Cricut & Cricut Cartridge Accent Essentials; Want2Scrap/brown gemstones; Mini Glue Dots

Overall the project took an entire weekend to complete, but I couldn't be happier with the result. It has found a happy home on our living room wall.