Tin Cans - made pretty - Sugar Bee Crafts

We all know that gift giving is just as much about the presentation as it is the gift itself. I love this idea of giving gifts in tin cans – super cute, and waaay thrifty. I’ve seen this idea on several craft blogs and you can check them out, but here’s my take on the how-to tutorial.

First – this is VERY important – use the right can opener. This project requires a Safety-Edge Can Opener (like the one from Pampered Chef) – it cuts along the SIDE of the can, while a regular can opener cuts along the TOP – here’s the difference in a visual so you can see what I’m talking about:

If you use a regular can opener, the lid falls right through, and for this project you need to put the lid back on (you’ll see…). So grab some paper and measure your can to see how wide of a strip to cut – then cut it:

Mine didn’t quite make it all the way around so I had to cut a couple of strips. Just make it work. I used a glue stick to attach it – tape would work too. Nothing fancy needed.

You also need to cut a paper for the bottom of your can – this will actually become the top – just trace around the lid you cut off, or the bottom of the can. It’s cute to do this in contrasting paper, but I didn’t for the tutorial.

Then put the can over your treats. Then hot glue the lid back on – I found it worked best to put the hot glue on the rim of the can, not the lid – it was very hard to photograph this step – by the time I snapped a pic, my hot glue had cooled to unusable – so I gave up. I’m sure you can picture the step.

Now, can you see why the bottom of your tin can became the top of your gift can? Since you hot-glued the lid on, you want them to open the other side, so the hot glue bead doesn’t interfere with the recipient using their can opener. I made a few cans with cookies but gave them away so fast that I forgot to take a picture.

The picture to start this post is of a #10 food storage can – it’s huge, and it’ll be so fun to fill it full of goodies and give it away. No matter if it’s cookies or hershey’s kisses or a can of pennies, anything is fun to get if comes like this! Oh, and another thought – I just noticed that I have some canned Pineapple that have a pull-tab top – wouldn’t it be fun to open them with my SafetyEdge can opener from the bottom, fill them with treats, glue the bottom back on, and watch someone pull the tab to find their goodies – oh the possiblities. So next time you open some cans, save them and get to crafting 🙂