Weekend DIY: Upcycled Holiday Containers

This post is written by contributing author Angela Hamilton. 

If you have extra tins or boxes lying around from the holidays, there may just be one more thing to wrap this season. Upgrade your gift boxes from seasonal to year-round use.

I never throw away my Christmas tins and boxes, but keep them in a large overflowing box of goodies. Instead of taking up more space in my almost nonexistent storage, this year I chose to redecorate the containers and use them as jewelry tins and candle holders. 

For this project, I chose to recycle dictionary pages. I keep an old dictionary that I found in a box of books outside my apartment complex one year so that I never run out of paper for projects. I never intended to throw the book away, so it’s even better if you can salvage paper-products that are doomed to the trash (or hopefully recycle), like newspaper or neutral gift wrap. 

The wrapping on the box is still a little reminiscent of Christmas, so I may need to swap it out for spring paper later on in the year. I prefer the uniqueness of the text on the tins. You'll never see the same definition twice!

Important notes: 

• If you’re reapplying a lid, make sure the paper near the top is flat and secure, to avoid wrinkling. 
• Use masking (or washi) tape on surfaces you might want to reuse later – I fully intend to peel back the paper next season and reuse these snowman tins for cookies!
• If you plan to use as a candle holder, make sure the paper is on the outside only.

Happy wrapping!

Angela Hamilton is a writer and crafter from the Pacific Northwest, and a recent college graduate who blogs about creativity, her adventures alongside her Nikon, and her thrift-shopping, list-making lifestyle. She is currently striving to find a balance between working full-time in an office and following those distant dreams of writing and making things every single day. Her blog is Garden & Sea, and she runs both a vintage shop  and a crochet shop on Etsy. Connect with Angela on Twitter.