Type Tray and Grandkids Names

 Just thought I'd take a minute to share my type tray!!  I bought the tray from Keith at Treasures Antiques, the Antique Mall where I work ... and paid 'Gulp', full price, a rarity for me because I am a dealer and always know I can find an item later at a better price.  In this case, I had never seen a type tray like this one, with even square, and I loved it.

I took it home and tried it with my extensive cameo collection .... fail, so bad I didn't even snap a picture.

 Then I saw this tray with watch faces on Pinterest and gave it a try ...

I didn't really like it either ... so .... then ....

When I saw this on Instagram ... I thought ....

 ... hey, I have all those letters tiles for sale at Treasures, so maybe ...

 I that is how I decided to use the tray and the letters to do a little tribute to my 16 grandchildren ...

 ... and here it is!

I mounted it on the window on the landing of my staircase, and I love how the blue tiles tie it into the whole window scene.  What you don't see here, is that on the left is a photo gallery of ancestors on the wall going up to the landing and to the right is a photo gallery of my children and grand children going from the landing to the second floor. It seemed like the perfect spot!

I actually have 3 of my grandchildren staying for ten days while their parents are on vacation.  I don't do a lot of babysitting for my kids, but I did hear, recently, that grandparents who babysit are less likely to develop Alzheimer's Disease .... sounds good to me.

Type Trays and Antique Watch Faces

 When I went to the last Acorn Show in February, I snapped this shot of enameled watch faces in my friend Cathie's booth ... love them, and at $4 each, they seemed like a great price ...

Then I saw this picture on Instagram ... can we say "LOVE"? Yep, at first glance, and since I had a great antique type tray I had been looking for a use for .... seemed like the perfect match ....

The only flaw in my thinking is that the type tray has 98 compartments, and well, you do the math.  I knew it wasn't going to happen, at least not that way!

So I bought a lot of about 100 watch faces from another dealer at Treasures Antiques for $10, and saved out all the large ones, they weren't old, but watch faces are watch faces, right?

Next I printed off watch faces I found on Pinterest, and glued some to the back of clear glass disks, others I decoupaged on front of wood game disks, still others, I glued onto old celluloid buckles.

Last of all I bought a package of brass Tim Holtz watch faces from Hobby Lobby.

 In the end I just cut out some paper watch faces, and placed them in some of the spots, filling in with a few vintage keys I had on hand.  I figure that I can eventually fill the case and trade out the paper images.

I love how it turned out and thought that it made the perfect backdrop for my robot family!!