Vintage Tray Message Boards

I LOVE everything vintage, BUT there are certain things that I am drawn to more than others and find myself with somewhat of a collection, one of these things is vintage tin trays. I don't know what is it but I just cannot resist an ornate or super retro metal tray, AND the best part is they are inexpensive and therefore right in my price range. But I live in a small apartment and definitely do not have room to display all of my finds, that's where creativity comes in, and the repurposing happens! 

I am always looking for organization solutions, since I live in a relatively small space. One thing I have been wanting to do is create a message board/station in my kitchen for all of those loose papers and reminders that we all find ourselves drowning in! 

All it took was stumbling upon an ingenious idea on Pinterest to use old cookie sheets as magnet boards, and my vision was born! If metal cookie sheets can be used as magnet boards then surely so can my old trays! So, that's precisely what I did! I used some command strip to adhere them to the walls and added some diy magnets and Voila! 

I have only two trays right now (I am using others around the apartment) but I plan to add more if I find them! One is a vintage Walt Disney tray with a FL map and cute scene of Mickey and friends. The other is a vintage Daher tray, made in England featuring a wine bottle and grapes in the middle and gorgeous gold details! 

Perfect Spot!

My mail-station (paper organizer from Target) hangs right underneath

Message board in action with a friendly reminder to my bf :)

Thanks for stopping by!

-Liz :)

My Inspiration Board

Hi again!

In this post I want to share my super-quick upcycled thrift store cork board that I am now calling, My Inspiration Board! lol. Which is basically, well... a board of inspiration! If you are anything like me (which I am assuming you are since you are reading crafting blogs :) ) then you probably also love thumbing through the latest issues of design/crafting magazines, like HGTV magazine, DIY magazine, BH&G, etc! And again like me, you probably see an awesome project that you know you want to try one day, but when that day comes, low & behold you seem to have conveniently misplaced the article :(! If this is sounding familiar than an inspiration board is the answer to your problem. Check out how I transformed a $2 cork board from Goodwill into my Inspiration board:

First of all, I would like to apologize that I do not have a before picture for this project! I just got a new phone (Galaxy S4, yesss!) and although all of my pics from my previous phone were backed up on google + it seems like a couple were lost somehow :(

Anyways!!! All I did to transform this board was to simply make a random geometric pattern with a ruler and a gold paint pen! I told you it was simple, but cool nonetheless! I also added an embellishment to the top:

My Mom found this eagle at a rummage sale along with some other old decorative pieces! Thanks Mom!! I did have to do a little work on it tho, it originally looked like this:

Kind of an off-white, taupey color, and it still had a lot of extra plastic around it that had to be broken off (along with a few pieces of the eagle itself, which had to be glued back on, oops!) But then after a quick coat of flat black spray paint it makes the perfect topper to my Inspiration Board! And how did I attach it you ask? Well, I didn't! It simply sits on top of the board leaning against the wall, that way if I ever want to use it for something else, no problemo! 

So last step obviously is to tack up some clippings from my fav magazines:

I also tried to group similar clippings together, for example this section is all ideas for how to display large groups of like items 

Love it! Now all my ideas are organized and I know right where to find them :)

Liz :)