Last night I was skyping with a couple of blog friends (Lyn from Mid Michigan Mom, Tracy from At Home with Sweet T and Lisa from Five Kids, a Dog and a Blog). We were talking all about the fun items we re-purpose every couple of months for the Thrift Store Swap and one girl (I don’t remember who) said “I heard my swap partner almost bought a baking tin… what in the world would I have done with that?”
Well I don’t know what you would have done with that little cookie tin… but I would have made a Mini Scrapbook!
A couple of years ago I needed an inexpensive way to make presents for everyone on my Christmas list. I love to scrapbook but big scrapbooks (the 12 x 12) kind are not exactly budget friendly. Cookie tins on the other hand… cookie tins are inexpensive and come in cute patterns! I picked up a couple for a dollar or two a pop and grabbed a few scrapbook supplies from the dollar bins! I picked up two packs of paper, a package of chipboard embellishments and a pack of stickers. I picked supplies that were all from the same line so that they would easily coordinate and by the end of the day I had spent $10 to $15 dollars for presents! That’s not bad when your list has 10 people!
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Just look how cute this Cookie Tin looks with my mini scrapbook pages tucked inside! The lid is underneath the tin so it can be closed for storage… but I thought a pretty bow would be perfect for gifting my presents!
I think I made a total of 10 tins… each with 8 to 10 mini scrapbook pages! Yup… I watched a lot of Hallmark and Lifetime holiday movies! Once I created the first one I just had to duplicate it… 10 little snow man pages coming up!
Since I didn’t want to spend a fortune on scrapbook supplies I bought an extra pack of paper and used it to make embellishments for several pages… little snowflakes and stickers are easy enough to whip up! I topped the whole thing off with a few staples from my stash… ribbon, rhinestones, flowers etc!
The hardest part was not having the photos to glue into each page! Since I was giving these away they’re really more like kits than actual scrapbooks… I wanted each of my friends or family members to be able to tuck their own pictures into their little tin. So instead of photos I cut computer paper into photo sized pieces and tucked those into the pages!
I had to make them removable so I tucked them behind ribbon or chipboard… then I wrote the dimensions on each little sheet so that folks could easily match their photos with the right page! This little Christmas tree page has the biggest photo in the whole book… a 3×5! See how small this little scrapbook is?!
I really love the idea of a tiny little holiday scrapbook… maybe it’s my compulsive nature but I can see a whole little collection of tins. Trips to the beach, Christmas trips with the family, Cruises for Mom… there are so many opportunites that a little tiny scrapbook would be perfect for! I love my big scrapbooks but how much fun would it be to create a mini scrapbook for each trip?!
The best part is a single mini scrapbook wouldn’t take too long to assemble… whereas a 12×12 scrapbook takes forever to put together!
Now I’m itching to make another little mini scrapbook… I bet I could find a cute little tin in the dollar bin at Wally World! What would you do with your baking tin?
