Our Sand/Salt Tray for tracing

I was looking at making a salt/sand tray for D.  I read through various blogs and looked at many stores online.  The problem with the ones online were that it was way over my budget.  I liked the idea from here.  I even went and bought a shadow box from target for $10.  It was plastic, did not have a lid and somehow seemed flimsy.  Another thing that I tried using was a simple rectangular casserole/baking dish with a lid from wal-mart.  D was ok using that but it did not look nice in our classroom definitely!  Then I saw the posts here and here and then started my search for a nice wooden box with a lid.  It had to deep enough and not break my budget of less than $5!  Finally I found mine at Salvation Army for $2.  It was a hinged box, but I removed the hinges from the box so that D can place the lid upright and place her sandpaper letter there.  The box was lined with red velvet but I lined the box with a piece of green card-stock cut to size.  For now this tray holds salt and D has been using this a lot.  Her interest in writing has peaked and this salt tray had helped tons!