Quick Recycling Project: Girls' Bathroom Organizers

My 4 year old came home from a couple days away with a long time family friend, where she got to help decorate a mountain of cookies with her honorary big sis, a wonderful teen (yes, they exist) named Autumn.  She also came home with a large stash of girlie jewelry-- a big stack of plastic bangle bracelets, plastic beaded stretchy necklaces, princess lip gloss "watches" and the like, as well as a supply of little girlie hair stuff (to add to our growing collection of little girlie hair stuff).  This presented a minor organizational challenge: where to stash such goodies which are too small to toss in the toy box and too easily strewn around the house. Easy fix: make a pretty container for her to store her collections.

Recycle a cookie tin and a formula (or coffee) can into cute girls' hair and jewelry organizers
with scrapbook paper and spray adhesive, and easy word art labels. 

I just wanted to share this quick project with you--and I mean quick.  I grabbed some goodies from our Potential Craft Stuff tote (I've mentioned before that I save random things that would otherwise be household trash like boxes, tins, paper towel rolls, egg cartons, etc. and in a big plastic storage bin to raid for crafty recycling projects) which included a baby formula can and a cookie tin.  To spruce these up, I consulted the Big Box o' Scrapbook Paper and had Avi help choose some pretty prints.  To be honest, I steered her towards a carefully chosen selection of paper that a) at least somewhat goes with the whimsical garden-themed bathroom of hers, and b) wouldn't make me sad to chop it up (if you are a collector of papers too, you can relate, if not, well you'll have to take my word).

From here it's pretty straight forward:  trace the lid onto the back of the paper, cut, and adhere.  I used Scotch Super 77 spray adhesive, because I was gluing onto metal and because it is quick, bonds to practically anything, and lays down nicely...Super indeed.  I whipped up a label in a Word document and printed it on card stock, cut out, glue down.  I decided I didn't need to cover the sides of the tin as they were a solid color without any markings, but to break up the solid aluminum inside, I traced another circle in a plain sparkly green card stock to lay down in the bottom.  For the little pony tail holders and hair clips, I peeled the label off the formula can, and traced twice it onto another piece of scrapbook paper, sprayed adhesive to one piece, and carefully wrapped it around the can.  Then I used the other piece to line the interior.  I merely changed the word "jewelry" to "hair stuff" on my Word label and reprinted it, then glued this on too.

Total time: 20 minutes for two organizers.  Total cost: nothing--everything was recycled or was on hand. Tis' the season for cookie tins and to go through coffee canisters so set aside yours and turn them into something crafty.