On The Road Canister-It-All Fun!

This week I was remembering a craft night that I had with friends “years” ago. My oh-so-talented friend, Trish, brought supplies for us to decoupage empty Pringles canisters. I had never used mod podge before, and hence began the love affair with it! 🙂

It’s amazing how great the canisters looked covered in decorative paper and glue. I ended up using mine to keep paint brushes from getting damaged while transporting them from place to place.

Since summer is upon us and vacations are in the works, I thought this would be a fun project to do yourself or with the children in your life. The canisters are great to keep small items from getting lost (or smashed) while on the go. Perfect for office supplies, crafts and art items and games for that road trip.

Depending on your daringness, it can be a little messy using mod podge, so make sure your work area is covered and protected from any glue slinging!

SUPPLIES NEEDED:
Empty Pringles Canisters
(How to clean: The canisters are made of cardboard so it is best not to submerge them in water. Just quickly suds up the inside with a little bit of soap and then give it a quick rinse. Let dry before decorating.)
Scrap Paper
Double Sided Adhesive Tape
Washi or decorative tape.
Acrylic Paint & Brush (for any touch-up areas)
Scissors
Measuring Tape/Ruler
Sponge Brush to apply Mod Podge (I used Matte Finish)
Clear Gloves to keep hands clean (optional)

On this first container, I only used scrap/patterned paper, double adhesive, scissors and Washi tape. It took approximately 10 minutes to make.

Take your canister (clean & dried) and measure the length of it in order to cut your paper to fit (I measured 10 1/4 inches between the top & bottom silver rims).

Cover the bottom and top ends with the double adhesive by circling around the canister with the tape.

Take strips of the tape and cover the canister’s length with the double adhesive or just continue to circle around the canister with the tape (roughly an inch apart).

Once it is covered with enough tape to secure your paper, carefully line up the edge of the scrap paper so it fits between the top and bottom of the canister (between the silver rims).

Slowly roll it around the canister keeping the paper straight (and tight).

Cut off any excess paper (or you can precut when you measure the length…make sure to have a 1/2 inch overlap).

Add tape to the edge of the paper and press to secure it to the canister/paper.

Mine had some yellow from the canister showing at the bottom, so I used blue acrylic paint to cover it.

For a more finished edge, use Washi tape or paint/decorate masking tape and use it to finish the top and bottom.

The second one I made, took about 30 minutes to make. I used mod podge (glue), scissors, and several different sheets of scrap paper. Wear gloves if you do not want to get glue on your fingers..this part gets a bit messy! 🙂

I had a strip of scrap paper that was trimmed off for the first canister so I used it for the top of this one and then I cut another strip to cover the bottom of it. This left me with a nicely lined top and bottom.

Both were attached to the canister using the mod podge.

After adding the top and bottom pieces, I tore pieces of scrap paper and covered the rest of the canister by gluing them down one by one. I added glue to the canister and to the back of the pieces. I pressed each down until it was smooth (applying glue as I needed it to adhere the paper). This makes for a beautiful sticky situation, so wear gloves to keep your hands from getting covered in glue.

PHOTO BREAK…me hands are covered in glue! 🙂

While the canister was drying, I cut out numbers from one of the sheets of scrap paper. I added them to the canister with mod podge as well. After the numbers were dry, I applied one more coat over the entire paper surface (including the top cardboard rim).

While I was gluing the numbers on, I thought it would make for a great game for small children to learn numbers by having to hunt for them on the canister as someone called the number out (can you tell I just came back from a homeschool convention…Thank you Melinda Boring!).

Loving how they both turned out! Plus, I already have them loaded with art supplies.

Note: Even though these canisters can be cleaned before decorating, I would not recommend using them for food again unless it is prepackaged in a safe container.

Happy art making,
Michelle

A happy heart is good medicine
Proverbs 17:22