Upcycling Tin Cups to Office Supply Holders

I have a confession. Sometimes I buy certain brands of food because I like the packaging they come in. This is the case with these peach slices:

There’s something nostalgic about those little metal tins that just cannot be matched by plastic cups. But then, after throwing who knows how many in the recycling bin, I had a small epiphany: I can do something crafty-like with those. 

After some debate amongst the different ideas that came into my head, I landed on making a handful of them into office supply holders. 

Supplies: 

• Peach tins – I had 5, but really you can do as many or as few as you’d like. Remove the label, wash them out, and let them air dry. 
• Peanut butter 
• Paper 
• Spray adhesive 
• Chalkboard paint 
• Paint brush (I use foam brushes from the dollar store) 
• An exacto knife 
• Chalk 

Process: 

After your peach tins have been washed and air dried, you’ll probably still have some gummy glue where the label was tacked to the tin. Smear a bit of peanut butter on the glue so that the glue is completely covered, and let that sit for about an hour. 

The oils in the peanut butter dissolve the adhesive ingredients in the glue, so once it has sat for long enough, you can just wipe the peanut butter off the tin with a tissue and the glue will come right off with it. For especially thick gobs of glue, you may need to repeat this process to get everything. 

*Side Note* If the glue is dry (not sticky to the touch) peanut butter will not help to remove it. This will be the case for many spaghetti sauce jars. I just use sand paper to get that type of glue off.

Well, now that the glue has been removed, you’ll have to wash the tins again in order to remove the peanut butter oils. Again, allow the tins to air dry completely. 

While the tins are drying, you can make your stencil for painting. If you have a circuit cutter, this would be a grand time to power it up. I do not have a circuit cutter (I asked for one for Christmas), so I hand cut my stencils on regular printer paper. 

Once the tins are dry, use spray adhesive (follow the can’s directions) to apply your stencils to the tins. 

Next you’ll need to get out your chalkboard paint. Apparently it is very easy to make chalkboard paint using any coloured paint and some other ingredient, but I’m lazy, so I just went out and bought some. 

Paint your tins using thin coats. Multiple thin coats are always better than few thick coats for pretty much anything that involves painting because it promotes better adhesion and dries smoother. Make sure you allow your paint to dry thoroughly between coats, especially when painting on non-porous surfaces, in order to avoid streaking. I ended up painting three coats on my tins. 

After my three coats had dried completely, I tried to just pull the paper stencil off. It didn’t go so well! The paint started peeling off with the stencil! So I cut around the edge of the stencil with a very sharp exacto knife (like, straight-out-of-the-package, never-used-before sharp), and then I was able to pull the stencil off easily. 

Here’s something I didn’t know until I started reading about chalkboard painting crafts on the interwebs: Did you know that chalkboards need to be primed? What I mean by this, is before you write on your beautiful new chalkboard surface with chalk, you need to apply a thin coat of chalk over the whole surface and erase it. Otherwise the things you write will not erase fully when the time comes to erase them. Apparently this should be done any time you wash a chalkboard as well. 

 Priming my tins 

Now, we can write! 

These tins are now filled with small office supplies, and have a home on my desk, where I do all of my school work. Next time I need a paper clip or a tack, I am good to go!