Upcycle Project: Refurbished Metal Tins

Quick share here today of a project I've been playing around with for a bit: upcycling some rather bland (ugly!) used tins. Some were tea tins I acquired for a quarter apiece at a garage sale just for this purpose, one had been a gift tin originally containing a wristwatch, one I grabbed at Goodwill because of its appealing shape, and one was an actual vintage Daher tin that was sort of nice, but I craved an improvement. (Well, MY idea of an improvement.) Without further ado, here's the first one. Daher "Fascination Face Powder" tin. Yes, it's vintage, but I see lots of these available and I don't think the Antiques Roadshow police are going to come after me for defacing this one. And I literally mean "defacing"! Here's what it looked like originally (not my photo, but one I plucked at random from the internet).

Nothing wrong with this tin, per se, but I had some vintage Meyercord decals I wanted to play with. Here's my "Must Love Dogs" version:

I had a little trouble with the old decal cracking and splitting; hence the spaniel's slightly mutant appearance, but with the addition of some fine iridescent glitter and my Posca paint pens, I minimized what I could and I'm relatively pleased with the result. I've since learned that if one applies a coat or two of clear spray paint on old decals, they're less likely to disintegrate when soaked in water for application. It's not a guarantee, but it does help. Here's an example: This tin was the dreary Fossil (?) watch tin. I spray-painted the lid (bit tricky, but you can manage it if you cover the bottom part surfaces with paper first) to cover up all the writing and logo stuff. Then I took my vintage deer decal, treated with two layers of clear spray paint, and applied it. It still split slightly, despite my efforts, but I'm pretending that just adds faux-vintage patina to my project. I also used a coat of spray adhesive and carefully sprinkled fine iridescent glitter to further disguise the flaw. Not a true fix, but I can live with it.

A gift of new vintage-design decals set me off on the tea canister project. These are really quite delightful! I understand they were ordered from Etsy, but I'm afraid I don't know which seller. First, I spray-painted the tins to give them pretty pastel backgrounds. The new decals went on like a charm! Here are some photos of my "new vintage" poodle tins: