Easter Treats

Happy Easter everyone.Its a long time since I posted on here but I want to share my weekend project. If anyone has small children, they will know how much chocolate turns up in the house over Easter. When Beatrice and Freddie were younger we always organised an Easter Egg hunt and went completely over the top. Mr. Tink and I would be eating chocolate when they were asleep for weeks! Last Easter I made the decision that they were old enough to understand that it wasn't all about chocolate and we agreed that I would buy a token egg and give them some money instead. This went down really well, teenagers never have enough money! Flicking through an old craft magazine (Making Gifts Issue 1) I came across an idea for decorating ring pull cans by Amy White. A perfect way to recycle!

I opened a can of baked beans at the bottom using a safety can opener to remove the whole of the bottom of the tin and washed and dried the tin thoroughly.

Using Papermania Honey and Hugs cardstock I lined the inside of the tin using pva glue to hold it in place. It was quite easy to do, I just cut the paper to size, spread the pva thinly inside the can, rolled up the paper with the pattern on the inside placed it in the tin and when I let go it unravelled to the sides of the can - Voila! All I had to do then was press lightly inside and wait for it to dry!

Next I chose some little gift items (for Beatrice some lip gloss and body spray), some cream eggs and (our favourite!) some Maom Stripes. I popped them inside the can together with some fluffy chicks and the most important part..... a crisp £20 note! Its important to remember to put the treats in upside down! (I did them the other way for the benefit of the photograph but changed them back before the next stage) Next I cut two circles out of cardstock and placed one on the bottom of the can (so that when its glued back on it will be inside the can) and the other on the top of the can under the ring pull. Once dry I glued the bottom of the can back on. The magazine recommended using Pinflair glue but as I didn't have any I found Bostick did the trick. A little messy but it worked reasonably well!

After about an hour the bond had been made so all that was left to do is to decorate the outside of the can. Again I used Honey and Hugs paperstock and decoupaged the main animal character and used ribbon from my stash. TBH I think the paperstock was a little juvenile for soon to be 16 and 18 year olds but hey!... Its Easter. When I presented them this morning they very sweetly humoured me by saying all the right things and its amazing how £20 can light up even the most sullen teenagers face LOL.

I'll definitely use this idea again, there are so many possibilities with it, stocking fillers, birthday treats, teacher gifts etc. It can be as juvenile or as sophiscated as you wish depending on the card and paperstock used. I would however urge caution if giving to young children as obviously the open tin may be a little sharp.