MIXED MEDIA MONDAY - Ink Tray

Ink Tray - slideshows

PSST... Click the bottom left corner of the Kizoa screen and you'll see a Play arrow that activates the music to go with the slide ;-) Afterwards, click the pause button if you don't want to hear the loop play again while you read the 'how to'.


After weeks of attempting to get this thing put together, I finally got the Ink Tray finished.

My Goal was to have all of my current ink spots w/ their duaber, the ink refills and a mister bottle within reach. Before whenever I wanted a color, I needed to pull out the little sterilite container with that color family.

While the sterilite's worked, kept everything in place and technically, took up less space, I wanted to see all of my colors. Also, in the sterilite, the water color crayon tin is under the spots box and there was no place to store the mister bottle. I want to make a glimmer mist for each color. So whatever color I'm working in, I have all the tools I need in one spot. 

I started by laying a sheet of paper out on the top of my ikea paper cabinet and sketching out the design, incorporating the size needed for the spots, the refill bottles and the mister bottle.

Then I cut all of the foam core pieces and begin the task of assembling. Two things to keep in mind:

1) I recommend a box cutter as opposed to an Xacto blade. The Xacto has a tendency to flex, altering the dimensions - speaking from experience here.

2) Use a hot temp glue gun with multi-temp or hot-temp glue sticks. KEEP YOUR FINGERS AWAY FROM THE GLUE... or you may find yourself minus finger prints should the cops ever need them for some reason. 

After everything was glued into place, I drenched 3/4 of a yard of good quality quilting fabric in a 2-1 homemade modge podge and draped it over the entire frame. Because of some of the inconsistencies I spoke of earlier, I had to really work the fabric into contact in some places. You will want to do this on a large flat surface covered with something like a cheap plastic table cloth or a large trash bag. This will keep your fabric from sticking to the table and easy removal after everything has dried. I did mine in the center of the dining room table and turned on the ceiling fan. Mine dried solid in about 8 hours but I left it over night.

The other useful tip about covering the whole thing is then the fabric in the openings was nice and crisp, making it easier to cut those pieces away with the exacto knife. I wanted the top to offer a pop of color... not just the white on white.

To attach the bottom into place, I flipped the frame over and ran a bead of Aleene's Tacky along every piece of the ribbing then pressed the base into place. With the tray still upside down, I put the folding table on top (still collapsed) and left it sit over night. this provided a consistent weight over the entire tray and left it undisturbed for the glue to really take hold.

The tray not only houses the inks but I built in a slot in the back to hold the watercolor crayon box, too. And while this didn't turn out 'fancy' pretty, it is going to serve the purpose. 

Next task... finish the SU embellishment storage boxes.