
Best Bone Meal Fertilizers
Bone meal — ground animal bone — is the traditional slow-release phosphorus fertiliser for vegetables, fruit trees, and bulb plantings. Phosphorus drives root development and flowering, so bone meal at planting time
Today we are sharing a Metal Embossed Tray Up-Cycle. Recently, my Dad gave me several metal trays that he had saved from multiple past family Christmas parties. I’m sure you are familiar with these trays as they are often used for holiday cookie platters and gift giving.
Back in the spring, I created some lovely copper and aluminium flowers using metal scraps, a scalloped paper punch and some very easy embossing techniques.
When I made the flowers for this project, I actually made several more of these little gems because they were so fast, fun and easy to emboss. I figured I’d find a use for them someday.
Well, today is someday. I decided that one of the metal trays was getting a makeover using the hand embossed flower scallops.
I spray painted one of the trays black. After I arranged the embossed scallops on the tray, I realized to fill the tray the way I wanted, I need to make a few cut pieces for the edges. I still have quite a few metal scallops that were never embossed, so I used a few of them to make these edge pieces.
I laid one of the scallops on a tray and just pressed it in so I would know where I needed to cut it off to get the size piece I needed and the curve I needed. I used this piece as a template to cut the 6 pieces that I needed. Below you can see where I was testing out the template to make sure it was the right size.
I quickly hand embossed a design on each of these newly cut partial flowers using the same technique that I used to make the flowers.
I laid the flower scallops out on the tray and moved them around until I was satisfied.
These pieces will be glued down with E6000 glue.
I love how this tray turned out! This tray would look beautiful on a table, displayed on a shelf, wall or mantel.
If you are unfamiliar with metal embossing, where to get supplies, or if you are just looking for some basic tips and techniques, be sure to check out our 4 part mini series for beginners: Metal Embossing Series. It is really a whole lot easier than it looks.
Thank you!

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