Halloween in Wonderland Memory Tray

I thought I’d show off the “Halloween in Wonderland” board I made as part of the Mini 13 Days of Halloween swap for my partner, michelleandbean.

First, off, this image was pinned on her pinterest that I used as the inspiration. Seemed like it would be fun! Turns out, it was quite a process. 🙂

At Micheal’s, I found a “memory tray” by brand, “Recollections” but….it only had 6 compartments. Like this:

But I bought it anyway plus some thin strips of unfinished balsa wood from the model aisle and brought it home.

Next I went about looking for the info on the paper. Turns out it was called, “Halloween in Wonderland” by company “Graphic 45” but it was discontinued in 2011 and people are now selling it for like $75 on ebay and over $100 on etsy. 😮 Woah. That was SO not going to work for some 12×12 scrapbook paper!! I spent like 2 days scrounging through google, trying to find SOMEWHERE to buy it without it being so much, but had very little luck. Just lots of other people wanting it too. This was one hard-to-find set of paper!

But then, I hit gold. While doing an image search (hoping to find places to buy it that way) I came across a site that had large scan images of the pages. Even though the pages themselves were out of stock on their websites, they still had images of the sheets. I was able to download them and then use my laser printer to print the pages I needed to complete the project. Huzzah! ;D

I planned out where I wanted things to go and painted the balsa wood black and cut to shape and glued it down. And filled in all the boxes with paper.

I scrounged through my jewelry findings, etsy, ebay and the craft store for various accessories to add as accents to the boxes. Here are some close-ups:

And the finished product!

From modifying the tray with my own slats to make more box divisions, to overcoming paper that was discontinued two years ago, to finding a bunch of accessories to get the look of the inspiration piece, it was a lot of work. 😉 But I was really happy with how it came out.

Want to make your own? Links to large file size images for download are behind the cut!