A Place for Everything - Mini Project #2

I didn't blog last week because our WiFi router decided it didn't want to work. After messing with it for nearly a week things are back up and running. I guess I'll have to blog twice some week to make up for it and keep up my once-a-week blogging goal.

So last week I tackled another mini project. In my "craft room" (really it's a guest bedroom) I am forever losing little essential things like marking pens and rulers that can't seem to stay in one place. So I decided to create a place for them.

First I saw this picture on Pinterest:

Credit to justimagine-ddoc.com

I thought it was a classy and inexpensive-looking way to create a container for my stuff. Unfortunately the picture's link did not contain any instructions so I went searching for how to do this and happened upon this tutorial. I didn't follow it exactly but it is close enough to what I ended up doing.

The first step was saving some cans and cleaning them up. Next I found some coordinating paper that I had leftover from my scrapbooking days. My dad happened to have some Mod Podge left from one of his projects and he let me have one of his cheap paintbrushes so the only thing I really had to buy was duct tape (and at 20 yards to a roll I now have a lifetime supply of purple duct tape).

From there I followed the blog tutorial's instructions. I measured and cut the paper, brushed glue on the cans then quickly covered each with paper and smoothed out as many bubbles as I could.

After that I brushed glue on the outside of the paper and let it dry.

Later I cut and applied strips of duct tape and that was that. Easy peasy!

Here are my tips:

• I do not recommend cans with pull-tab lids like some soup cans. My finger learned the hard way that no matter how smooth it looks it can still cut you. I recycled those cans and used bean and veggie cans instead. However, I added the duct tape as an extra layer of protection anyway so if you only have pull-tab cans then just use some wider tape like duct tape and be very careful until it is applied.
• Be sure to cut the paper long enough so that it overlaps by about a half inch when you wrap it around the can. It seemed to make it stick better where the two ends meet.
• I tried using ribbon to cover the rim at first but it would only stick to the outside and refused to stick to the can's interior so I scrapped that and bought the duct tape. The tape maybe isn't as elegant as the ribbon but I'm very pleased with how easy it was to use and it's great at protecting fingers and tools from any sharp spots.
• For the can with the scissors in it I threw a scrap of felt into the bottom so the scissors aren't constantly banging against the bottom of the can.

Finished and filled