1) Who said baked beans and a naked flame don’t mix…
2) …hey, don’t get too close (just in case).
For this week’s craft I’ve rested my son’s felt-tip pens and pursued one of my other passions, creating beautiful things out of junk – in this case an elegant tea light holder made from an empty tin of Heinz Baked Beans (the beans on toast were pretty good as well). So why not give it a go, it’s a great way to ‘upcycle’?
It took about an hour and a half to make, and proved to be a much simpler project than I was expecting. It turns out that tin cans are made of very thin tin, all you need are a pair of ‘tin snips’, it’s as easy as cutting through paper with scissors. You’ll find instructions on how to make one below, I’ve also included a stencil for download, this should make marking up the can much quicker.
If you like this project be sure to check out next week’s craft – I’ll be showing you how to make a stylish rustic bowl from twigs and wire.
Please note: In Step 5, the strips you bend upwards form the base of the tea light holder, so you will need to invert the can to make sense of Steps 6 and 7. Also, and thanks to Sarahbelle42 for pointing this out, I wrapped the bottom strips around a pencil to help create the tight curls in Step 6.
Includes:
1) Mark-up stencil – print out at 100%
2) Collectable instructions – they are useful and they look good
798 downloads so far, thanks everyone!
If you are interested in the environment and crafting there are quite a few really useful blogs around. How can I recycle this? offers great ideas for making use of discarded stuff. Also check out, Crafting a green world – its full of projects that make use of recycled materials – it has some great ideas.
