Altered Tins

I absolutely love to recycle something old and turn it into something new and fun. I have taken old spice racks, painted them, added some BLING, and used them to store stickles or mini ribbon rounds.

Many moons ago, my son came home from Kindergarten and was just dying to get a Pikachu Pokemon card. That started an elaborate collection at our house. We had to "Catch Them All!" I learned the names of the pokemon and their evolutions, we have boxes of cards in English and Japanese. We've collected books, magnets, Burger King Toys, games, watches. We have had the Pokemon craze for a long time. I really enjoyed playing Pokemon with them too. As my son grew, so did his thirst for another game, so we learned how to play Yu-Gi-Oh, Magic, and World of Warcraft trading card games. We would spend a Saturday afternoon at the mall, or at Ron's to play in tournaments and we even travelled to Seattle to play in tournaments. Pokemon is still my favorite though. Now he and his brothers are into the online game of World of Warcraft. They spend hours a day playing online. They now have land parties in the basement. Their friends come over and bring their computers. We link up all the computers downstairs and they just play and play. I sure miss playing pokemon, I'm afraid to start WOW online. It is too easy to become addicted. This past weekend they were taking on another WOW team online and I kinda felt left out, I wanted to play too, but I don't know how...yet....

So, what does that have to do with scrapbooking? EVERYTHING! Of course I've painted Pokemon on their bedroom walls, scrapped their Pokemon parties, collected tons of Pokemon cards, decorated a giant jar to "catch" all their pokemon toys, and altered tins to hold their precious decks. I'm on a few scrapbooking groups online, and have found some other scrappers with kids into Pokemon. This last week I worked on making tins for their kids. I hope that they enjoy this activity with their kids as much as I have.

Supplies: Red, white and black paper; Black and yellow stickles; a tin (I prefer round ones, shaped like the poke balls); paper cutter; modge podge and foam brush; round punches 1" and 1 3/4"; red, black and white ribbon (optional); pokemon stickers (optional); black alphabets (optional)

Directions:
1) Lay your tin on top of a red or white piece of paper. I line it up halfway up the front of the tin and then fold it up (so I can cut 2 at once). Repeat for the other color. Cut them out.
2) Cut 1" strips of black paper (one for each side of the tin)
3) Punch out 2 different sized circles from white paper. Layer the white circles on top of each other.
4) Lay the red semi-circle on the top of the front of the tin and glue into place. Repeat on the back side of the tin.
5) Lay the white semi-circle on the bottom of the front of the tin and glue into place. Repeat on the back of the tin.
6) Lay the black 1" strip across the seam, joining the red and white semi-cirlces. Glue into place. Repeat on the back of the tin.
7) Lay the layered circles in the middle of the black strip and glue down. Repeat on the back of the tin.
8) Measure the width of the tin, and cut more black paper in that width. Glue around the outside of the tin. If you are using a tin with a latch, before gluing, gently press the paper around the handles, to make yourself a cutting guide, so that the paper will go around the handles easily.
9) Use ribbon, stickles, stickers, and/or alphabet letters to embellish your tin.
10) Fill it with Pokemon toys or cards, to give to a pokemon fan!