In a recent scientific survey performed by yours truly, there were 3,210,000 hits for the Google search “Altoids tin craft,” but only 906,000 for “Sucrets tin craft.” And most of them appear to be "Altoids tin repeats."
Travesty! Sucrets tins are great! Mine has lived in the uncharted regions of my purse for some years now, providing a fantastic home for any sort of meds I need/think I need/probably will never need on-the-go. However, they are uglier than their small, mintier cousins, I’ll give you that. So the other night, in a burst of craftiness, I decided to give the ugly duckling of the tin packaging world a much-need makeover.
I started by removing the ingredients sticker from the back of the tin and scrubbing off the residual goop with rubbing alcohol. (I know some people like to use Goo Gone for that sort of job, but I’ve found rubbing alcohol works just as well – if not better – minus that awful smell.)
Next, I traced the top of the tin onto a piece of cork leftover from an old coaster project and cut it out with my special sharp scissors. (I protect my sharp scissors with my life. They live in an undisclosed location only known to me so they don’t get used for anything mundane or manly. Hehehe… Do you have a pair like that?) But even using the sharp scissors left the cork a little rough and crumbly around the edges. I rubbed it down as best I could, but I planned on covering it later and wasn’t too worried about the finish.
Now for the fun part! I pulled out my set of mini alphabet stamps and went to town. (Practicing on a bit of scrap paper first, of course. :) Originally, I wanted to use red ink to match the red tin, but the red didn’t show up too well on the cork. I substituted black and it came out just fine. “For what ails you” – it makes me think of a spoonful of sugar or the glass of “medicine” in Peter Pan. Hopefully, whatever lands in this tin is somewhere in between!
Then I tried gluing the cork onto the tin, but the cork soaked up the Elmer’s and hot glue just got all gunky. (I think my glue gun’s dying and it wasn’t quite hot enough.) Plan C involved several strips of double-sided scrapbooking tape and that seemed to work just fine.
With the cork secured, I wrapped the edges in decorative adhesive tape (God’s gift to crafters? Quite possibly. I was thinking of gluing ribbon on, which in hindsight would have been a disaster!) and taped a bit of paper inside the cover for the finishing touch. Voila! What do you think?
Except for the skull and bones tape – 50 cents at Jo-Ann’s with a coupon! – I had all the supplies on hand, so this was a pretty low budget project. I wouldn’t mind sticking a brand or two in the cork for a little extra decoration, but I don’t mind it as is. I think my Sucrets tin is lookin’ mighty fine!
(What ails me? A sore throat, stomachache, and allergies, apparently! :)
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