arcs and Crafts

By Julie White

Some of the items that I see consistently in ARC stores across Colorado (yes, I visit ARC stores wherever I go…) are vintage, metal trays. Lots of them are brightly colored with flowers or designs, while others are simple brass or silver-toned. I’ve used them as wall art before and as functional trays to hold items but never as functional, wall art. Until now!

Using these beauties as my base I set about making metal message boards for the wall above my desk. There’s nothing that needs to be done to the tray itself, other than a good wipe down, so the diy part came in when deciding what to use as magnets on the boards. For this project I chose to use vintage brooches, although tons of items found at ARC would work: scrabble tiles or game pieces, buttons, tiny figurines, etc.

At my favorite ARC there is a full length turnstile display next to the jewelry counter with tiny bags of earrings, brooches, and bracelets on display. The day I went was a pink tag day so naturally I only looked through the pink tags. The baggies pictured above were some of my purchases.

To prep these guys to become magnets I removed the pin backing on each one. Two of them I was able to grasp with pliers and roll to remove, while the other one I made do with just cutting the actual pin part because I wasn’t able to remove the whole backing.

Once the backings were removed or modified (in the above picture) I was ready to glue on the magnets.

I had teeny, tiny but strong magnets left from an old project so I used just a dot of super glue to affix them to the back of the brooches. And that was it! Such a simple project but I love how it turned out. It looks great above my desk and serves a very functional purpose.