Fun with Altoids

. . . er, the tins they come in, that is.

This month at my doll club, we experimented with making things from Altoid tins.   There are really quite a few things you can do with these (and other) small tins - from useful to purely decorative.  There were many, many ideas being bounced around the table!

I did some pre-work on three tins before class.  I painted gesso on one (not shown), ground off all the paint on one (this can be done by hand-sanding but I used a grinder), and mod-podged papers on a third.

And here is what I ended up with!

I used wire to string beads and buttons for the arms and legs and to attach a flattened bottle cap along with doll-head bead as the head.  I had a piece of Tyvek and a footprint in paperclay which I used as embellishment on the lid. 

Inside, I mod-podged clip art of a vintage brandy advertisement.  I'm not sure what the message is here, but it's bound to be a good one!  LOL!

For the gessoed tin, I stamped a face on the lid.  The ink was not really permanent, so it smudged and ran a bit when I sealed it with mod-podge.  Actually makes it a bit more interesting, doesn't it?

On the inside is more "vintage" clip art and a stamped message.  The legs and hands - more clip art - were attached using wire and beads - and some cute little blue clothespins!  By the way, all of the clip art is from Alpha Stamps collage sheets.

Apparently two tins is my limit for one session - because the third one is very simple!

I glued some grunge board arrows on the top - and that's it!  Of course the paper mod-podge was already done.  I discovered that just one layer of paper can prevent the lid from closing properly.  For the next time, I will trim off the paper cover right at the lid line.  But this little box will be good to hold paperclips or something like that on the desk.

I provided several of the tins for the group to "play" with.  I've been collecting them for awhile  . . . and forgot to stop!  It was nice to clear some of them out!  But I've got more, never fear.

If you would like to see more samples of what can be done with these little gems, just put 'altered altoid tins' into your favorite search engine.  One of my favorites for eye candy is the Art-e-zine site.  Yummy stuff!