Painted Christmas Tin Makeover, Upcycled and Recycled
Christmas Tin Makeover
It’s almost that time of year…the time of year when you’ll be getting or giving Christmas tins. Hopefully not an empty tin, but one filled with glorious homemade treats. Once you receive one, you may be wondering, what can I do with these things other than the recycle bin, and I happen to have a couple of ideas just for you.
I actually thought I had a few of these left over from past years but when I went to look they were nowhere to be found. I’m sure they are hiding under a pile of future projects somewhere, but not finding my stash, I hit up the local thrift stores. Maybe I was a little too early for the Christmas displays but their stock of tins was somewhat lacking.
I was willing to go all in and pay up to $1 for a tin and in the end that is exactly what I paid when I found these at the Dollar Tree.
If you found plain white tins in your hunt, you can skip this step, otherwise spray paint your tins with a semi gloss white spray paint. You’ll probably need a couple coats to cover up the bright colors of the tins.
Use a darkish green acrylic paint to start painting your Christmas tree. Starting at the top , with a small tipped paint brush, work your way out to the branch tips.
You’re just creating a triangle shaped object with narrow little brush strokes going outside the boundary of the triangle.
Follow the darker green color with a lighter sage or seafoam green, letting some of the darker green color still show thru. If the lighter green mixes with the darker green, that’s perfectly OK.
This is the part where we’re going to cover up a lot of that beautiful brush work we just created. We’re about to make homemade paintable snow. I used to have a little container of this stuff sitting around but I think it dried up, so here we are.
This recipe was from Craftideas.info,,
That is not brown sugar but nice sand that I found beneath my brick patio. I missed the opportunity to steal a few tablespoons of sand from my grandson’s sandbox when I babysat him yesterday so I was reduced to prying up a brick on the patio. The recipe is 4 parts white paint, 7 parts sand and 1 part glue (this is Elmer’s brand school glue). Add more sand until you get a nice stiff consistency.
If you’d like a creamier recipe, this one is from the Imagination Tree…
Combine 1/2 cup white glue (PVA/ runny school glue) with 1/2 cup of shaving cream in a bowl and mix together until it looks like thick, whipping cream.
Glob on your snow as if it landed on the ends of the branches.
This was my final snowfall. You still see the tree shape but now the snow takes center stage. This tin is ready to regift with fudge, cookies or any other yummies.
A closeup of the sandy, snowy texture.
For the second tin, I decided to create a household first aid kit. If you have red tape sitting around, cut two equal pieces to create a super easy red cross. Otherwise, make a cross template, center it on your tin, and trace around the cutout shape.
Fill in your red cross shape.
So easy, nobody would ever mistake this tin for anything other than a first aid kit.
With a black sharpie, I did write First Aid all around the border of the tin to remove any further doubt about what this box contains. I also began to stock the kit with a few necessary items.
From the Overland Park Regional Medical Center I found a great list of 20 Essentials you should include in your First-Aid kit.
Both of these tins would make great gift ideas. Make sure you stuff them full of yummy goodies or a beginners supply of first aid necessities.
Stay safe and stay inspired.
One more Christmas tin from 2018
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That handpainted tree is amazing! I’ve never heard of using sand to make faux snow – thanks for the awesome tip! And for the painting tips because without your tutorial I can guarantee my tree wouldn’t look anything like that.