Goodwill usually has a nice selection of silver plate trays and I wait until they price one on the low range and cross my fingers it also has a half price sticker on the back! LOL I paid $4.99 for this beauty!

I made this silver plate tray advent calendar last year and was so happy it sold on the first day I took it to Sunrose Gallery. Since silver plate isn’t magnetic even though it is heavy metal, I used 48 magnets to make it. This year it dawned on me there was an easier way to make the silver plate magnetic.

Last year I attached a magnet underneath each chalk board number so the button “ornaments” would have something to hold them to the tray.

This year I magnetized the silver plate tray with pieces of a tin cookie container. Tin is the perfect metal for magnets. I placed a section of the tin container on the back side so the magnets would stay for the button ornaments on the tree. Then I cut little pieces of the tin container and used E6000 to attach them underneath each chalkboard number.

It was fun to decorate the tree with an old pearl necklace and red ribbon roses. I love the victorian tree image so much I made two other versions….coming up next post!