Old Fashioned Candy Tins

Candy.com – Old tin lunch boxes $12.95

My 5 Year old started School this year which brought up fond memories of my school years. One of those memories was carrying around an old tin lunch box. I can’t recall for the life of me what the character was and it’s surprisingly bugging me. If I ever go into deep hypnosis therapy this will be one of my deep embedded questions. “What was my lunch box character?” Do you remember what was on your lunch box?

So to cut a long story short, I have been searching high and low for adorable lunch boxes and then once I find the perfect one I will find a reason to buy it.

Here is my find and here is my reason : Party Favor Boxes for a chocolate themed 4 year olds party. I know the kids probably wont appreciate it, But the thought of every parents having a mini trip down memory lane excites me and outweighs the cost of these tins.

Decorative storage around the house would be quirky. What else could you use these tins for? Add your own great links to tin finds in the comments below.

I’ve done embroidery on paper before and it’s a lot of fun. You can use a needle to punch out a particular shape to stitch, or my favorite thing is to take a copy of an old photograph or a page from a magazine and add stitched details to the original picture.

One thing I haven’t tried but would also be fun to do is cross stitching on paper.

This is a technique that requires a fair amount of preparation because you need to find a pattern you can easily transfer and print it at actual size, then use the pattern itself to help you decide where to put the holes in your paper. And then after all that you can do your stitching.

It’s a pretty straightforward process, but Crewel Ghoul has a great tutorial that walks you through how to do it step by step. It even includes a sample pattern you can print out and try for practice.

The post also has tips for starting and finishing your threads so that the back looks as neat as it can, if that’s something that’s important to you. (When I have done embroidery on paper I usually just tape the thread end to the back. If the back were going to show I’d probably just cover it with more paper.)

Stitching on paper is a fun way to make bookmarks or greeting cards, but you also need to make sure your paper is thick enough to support the holes you’ll be making in it. This post has a good rundown of materials you’ll need and what kind of paper is best. She used watercolor paper but I’ve used card stock and scrapbook paper that was a little thicker than the average printer paper.

You can always test a little on the paper you’re considering to make sure it will stand up to the project.

Check out the post, which includes a video, over at Crewel Ghoul for more tips for cross stitching on paper. Is this something you’ve tried before? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo: Crewel Ghoul]

Have you read?