Old Coffee Cans

This summer, my darling niece, Tiffany, pointed out to me that the Kirkland Dark Roast Coffee at Costco is just a good, and much more affordable than the Starbucks coffee we have been purchasing for some years. So we made the switch. But this gave me a problem:

What to do with all the lovely cans I began accumulating. I have been stockpiling them, as I was certain I would come up with an idea at some point.

If you follow me, you will have seen the post on covering little coffee tins with paper for gift giving Christmas treats. As I was unpacking my Christmas ornaments this year, I realized that I could do the same with coffee cans, and store my lovely glass ornaments in them. I have been storing some of my more precious ornaments in several half-sized coffee cans that I have had since the 1980s. I just took the process of covering the little coffee tins to a much larger scale.

If you choose to do the same thing, I can tell you that to cover 2 coffee cans, you will need 3 sheets of 12x12 cardstock. The half-size cans use only one sheet per can. You will have to piece the paper, but it is still an upgrade from the coffee label! For each coffee can, you will need one 12"x 7 1/4" and one 8" x 7 1/4" paper. I used this SuperTape (you can get it on Amazon and sometimes at craft stores), all around the edges of the paper. Additionally, I put a big X in the middle with just regular 2-sided tape to reinforces the sticking. I put the 12" piece of cardstock on the can. Once that is adhered, I do the same with the 8" piece and adhere it over the edges on both sides of the larger paper. I also measured the circle of the lid and made a cover with the same paper. They came out very festive and now, utilitarian!

Welcome, 2024

Tiny Flip Books

Over the past 25 years, I have scrapbooked A Lot...I mean hundreds and hundreds of photos. Consequently, I have so very many left over photos or partial photos. Rejected photos are just as expensive as ideal photos, so I am loathe to part with them. So they pile up in my photo box.

One day, a few years back, I was given a big pile of paint sample cards. Such lovely colors, on sturdy pieces of paper, all measuring 2"x 2". I got to thinking about what use I could put them to. I remembered an old Mary Engelbreit desk calendar I had been given and thought of this sweet little flip album. So, I trimmed sweet pictures of the calendar, gluing the images on one side of a paint sample and then trimming and gluing photos on the other side. Then, I punched a single hole on the upper left side of each photo and threaded them onto a book ring. As you see, I decorated a title page as well as a back page. It turns out that I had so many photo "scraps" that I was able to make a second flip album of the larger photos. That one measures 2"x 3". They came out so very cute! I just love them!

My mom, my daughter and I all have baskets of sweet little albums, ranging from this smallest one to 8"x 8" albums, laying about the house. They are delightful to flip through, remembering times gone by...