Printer's Tray

When I was growing up, my parents' neighbor was an antique dealer. While my parents never had any interest in interior design, occasionally our neighbor's newest enthusiasm made it over to our house. For awhile it was printer's trays, filled with all kinds of small odds and ends. My mother had to have one, so she purchased one from our neighbor and my dad hung it in the entryway of our house. Characteristically, its positioning was not based on the center of the empty wall space but on wherever he could find a stud--thus it hung, and still hangs, positioned vaguely to the left of center and is loaded with tiny silver spoons from the Grand Canyon and the like.

Much later, my sister found another cache of printer's trays in a resale shop and bought one for her and one for me. Here is my printer's tray.

Below are some close ups of the tray, and some notes on a few of the more random items. I should point out that it's impossible to dust, so you'll have to peer through the dust motes to see the actual pieces.

• My father-in-law thoughtfully, but unhelpfully, likes to give me boxed samples of cheap perfume for the holidays, so these have been relegated to the tray.
• The fortune in the photo, left (next to the "Toujours Moi" perfume), reads, "It's time to treat yourself to something special." At the time, I added in pen, "like a Chanel 2.55." Still waiting for that to happen.
  
• I inherited a collection of ancient political buttons from some random ancestor, so the tray was an obvious display forum. I tried to remove all the more contemporary political slogans before taking the photo, so as not to offend any readers. :-P
• I do have some printer stamps, mainly educational ones from the 1950's. There are individual letters and numbers, as well as basic words. We found they can be combined with hilarious (we think) effect, as you can see in the panel below, with an Austin Powers quote.
  

• Once my younger son was angry with my older son, so he grabbed the awl pictured right and went after him. Fortunately, he was disarmed before any blood was shed, and of course now we all think it was hysterically funny.