DIY Sewing Kits Out of Altoids Tins
by
Beth
6 Materials
$10
2 Hours
Easy
In this post, I'll show you how to make some cute and sparkly Art Nouveau themed sewing kits out of old Altoids tins, paper, washi tape, felt, and metal stampings. You can use these to store small sewing and embroidery projects or just as trinket boxes.
I've included a free pdf pattern on my blog with templates for the top, bottom, and inside of the Altoids tin.
Here's everything I used to make these cute sewing kits. I bought the metal stampings years ago for a jewelry-making project, but they turned out to be larger than I was expecting, so I'm glad I finally used them for something.
Some of my tins had colored edges, so I covered these with glitter washi tape, since I wanted a silver theme overall. The tape was a little bit taller than the side of the tin, but I just trimmed it down, using the top of the tin as a guide for my scissors.
I also added tape between the hinges.
And I added a small piece of glitter tape on top of the hinges. Make sure the box can still open and close freely. Don't let the tape cover the hinge itself.
I covered the top of the box with strips of double sided tape. You can let it overhang a bit at the sides.
Now turn the box upside down and use an exacto knife to trace around the edges of the box. Be sure to do this on a self-healing mat or a piece of cardboard, so you don't cut into your work surface.
It should look like this when you're done. The left side is a little ragged, so I re-trimmed it after taking this picture.
Now use the template to cut out a piece of paper the right size for the top outside of the Altoids tin. Peel off your double sided tape and adhere the piece of paper.
For the bottom of the tin, I decided to just cover it with strips of washi tape. This glitter tape covers it pretty seamlessly. Let each piece overhang the sides.
Now turn it right side up and trim around the edges with your exacto knife, the same way you did for the top.
Trace the bottom inside template piece onto a piece of paper. I used silver glitter paper. Cut it out, use strips of your double sided tape to cover this piece, and then trim down the tape to the exact size of the template piece.
Peel the backing off your double sided tape and stick it in the bottom of the tin. I thought about using the hot glue gun for this, but I think it might have ended up being lumpy. This way it's nice and smooth.
Cut the inside top template piece from felt. You'll notice that there's a shorter rectangular piece for the top as well. Cut that out of felt, too, and sew it onto the bigger template piece. You could also glue this if you want a no-sew option.
Using your hot glue gun, glue the felt piece into place on the top of the tin. The felt is thick enough that any glue lumps are not noticeable.
Lastly, center your Art Nouveau stamping on the tin, trace around it in pencil, so you know exactly where it should go, and then glue it in place.
Here are all the tins I decorated:
Add some sewing supplies inside and you've got cute and portable sewing kits!
Resources for this project:
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Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
Comments
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2 of 39 comments
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Oh Thank you!
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OMGosh! What a perfectly cute and great use for this. Love it. I just saved one and was wanting to do something with it. How ironic, as I haven’t been on HT in a while and decided to check it out now, and this pops up as one of my first post. 🥰👌🏽
Frequently asked questions
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How did you make the art nouveau piece? I would love to make it for my boxes also! Thank you.
These are awesome, I am wondering, is your felt embossed? It looks so neat.
Could you use decorative contact paper?