Templating ItemControl items without using ItemsSource - silverlight

Question

I am trying to build a custom Silverlight ItemsControl. I want the users of this control to add items using XAML. The items will be other UI elements. I would like to add a margin around all added items and therefore I want to add an ItemTemplate.
I am trying to do this using the ItemsControl.ItemTemplate, but that does not seem to be used when binding to elements in XAML, i.e using the ItemsControl.Items property.
However, if I use the ItemsControl.ItemsSource property, the ItemTemplate is used.
Is there anyway to use the ItemTemplate even though I am not assigning ItemsSource?
This is my code so far
<ItemsControl x:Class="MyControl">
<ItemsControl.ItemsPanel>
<ItemsPanelTemplate >
<toolkit:WrapPanel/>
</ItemsPanelTemplate>
</ItemsControl.ItemsPanel>
<ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<StackPanel Margin="20" Background="Red">
<TextBlock Text="Test text"/>
<ContentPresenter Content="{Binding}"/>
</StackPanel>
</DataTemplate>
</ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
<ItemsControl.Template>
<ControlTemplate>
<Border>
<Grid>
<Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ColumnDefinition Width="*"/>
<ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" />
</Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
<ItemsPresenter x:Name="ItemsPresenter"/>
<Button Command="{Binding SearchCommand}"/>
</Grid>
</Border>
</ControlTemplate>
</ItemsControl.Template>
</ItemsControl>
And when I use my control
<MyControl>
<Button Content="Button"/>
<Button Content="Button"/>
</MyControl>
This got me a display of the items, with a wrap panel layout but no applied data template.
Then I found this post that mentioned two methods to override.
Son in my code-behind of the class I have now
protected override bool IsItemItsOwnContainerOverride(object item)
{
return false;
}
protected override void PrepareContainerForItemOverride(DependencyObject element,
object item)
{
base.PrepareContainerForItemOverride(element, item);
((ContentPresenter)element).ContentTemplate = ItemTemplate;
}
BUT - this gets me two items, with the style (I.E a red textblock) but no actual content. The buttons in the list are not added. It feels like I am doing something wrong - any pointers on what?
Thanks!

Answer 1

If all you want to do is add some margin then you can just set the ItemContainerStyle instead of specifying a template:
<ItemsControl>
<ItemsControl.ItemContainerStyle>
<Style>
<Setter Property="FrameworkElement.Margin" Value="10" /> <!-- or whatever margin you want -->
</Style>
</ItemsControl.ItemContainerStyle>
</ItemsControl>
This will allow you to set any property of the container control (which in the case of an ItemsControl will be a ContentControl) through the style.