Bottle Cap Craft Tray

I don't like to craft at a table or a desk, much to the detriment of my couch. So, I decided to make a crafting tray to hold all of the bits and bobs that I need while working on my projects. 

I started with a dusty wooden tray that I bought at a thrift store. I re-glued the loose sides and sanded down the whole tray to make the wear more even.

 I then added some conditioning stain and sealed the whole thing with a spray sealer and let it dry overnight.

I made some origami boxes out of scrapbooking paper to hold beads at the top of the tray. I didn't measure these  and lived to regret it later. 

Now for the bottle caps! Despite the valiant efforts of family and friends, I didn't have enough beer caps "saved" to cover the entire area I needed. I pulled out the edges of each cap with pliers to make them larger. This also had the added benefit of making the resin pour I do later much shallower since they are now much shorter.

I've glued in the boxes that fit. (The pliers and cat brush are holding the corner of one of the boxes down while the glue dries.) The first row of bottle caps are glued down and the rest only took about 10 minutes to add. 

All of the bottle caps in and waiting for the pour!