April 17, 2011
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…kitty treat can tutorial…
thanks to my ever-present desires to recycle any piece of trash i see, i save loads of junk. after making my herb cans, i decided to plant some herbs for the cats. we’d had cat grass out for them last year, and they were all over it! so, i decided to use these cute, squatty little cans to plant some grass and nip for them. i thought maybe the stature of these cans would lend itself to sitting in a windowsill for the cats to enjoy while they watch the birds…i believe it will also lead to messy floors, but if the kittehs are happy, it’ll be worth it
anyway, here’s the tutorial—quick, simple, and fun!
time needed: about an hour and a half
materials:
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paint brush
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colored pencils or permanent markers
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scrapbook paper
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2 aluminum cans
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tacky glue
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scissors or paper cutter
1) first, gather all your supplies. since i knew i wanted to do two types of herbs, i chose a color
scheme for each that would still coordinate with my base paper.
2) if there’s paper on the outside of your cans, as there was with mine, go ahead and peel that
paper off. no need to worry if there’s any glue residue, since your paper will cover that.
3) measure your can height. then measure that same length on your paper, and cut a strip of
paper that is long enough to wrap around your can.
in this case, my can was about 2.5″ tall, and i was using a 12″ x 12″ piece of paper to start
with, so my strip was about 2.5″ tall by 12″ long.
and there’s bijoux, checking out my progress.
4) i wrapped my base paper around the can to make sure that it would fit alright. it had a
little bit of overlap, but i didn’t mind that. if you like, you can always trim the ends to meet
up exactly.
5) next, i poured a glob of glue onto the can and used an old paint brush to spread it evenly
over the whole can. the glue that i used is a fast-grab kind, so i had to work really quickly.
the benefit to that, though, is that when i put my paper on the can, it stuck instantly and
didn’t budge.
6) once the glue was spread across the entire surface of my can, i placed my paper and pressed
it down by rolling the can gently back and forth in my hands. employing that technique
(plus the use of a nice, thick glue) helps keep the air bubbles out when working with paper
on cans.
7) here you can see the color combo of papers that i chose for my catnip can. i used to
scrapbook like crazy, so i have tons of scraps and leftovers that come in handy for quick
projects like this.
8) i measured my white paper first, because i had a good idea of the size i wanted for my
labels. this white strip measured 3 cm. i then measured my other two colors: the gold at 3.5
cm and the dark orange at 4 cm.
9) here are the two color combos i chose, with the strips cut to the right size to make my labels.
10) i drew out my labels in some fun letters and colored them in with colored pencils. i wanted
to make the letters stand out a little more, so i went around them with black permanent
marker.and that’s that! plant something fabulous and fun for your fluffy friend and enjoy!
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