Crafty Ideas for Upcycling Tea Tins

Whether you have loads of our adorable square holiday tins or a collection of our classic large or small round tea tins, it’s pretty obvious that the best use when they’re empty is to refill them with a bag of your favorite Adagio loose leaf teas or teabags. The tins keep the tea fresh and look fabulous.

For those of you who want to do something more creative, we have a plethora of ideas; just take a look.

Redecorate

With a little imagination, you can completely transform our tea tins into decorative boxes for small gifts, storage tins for every room in the house, or ornaments for holidays or anytime décor.

Got fabric scraps? Use a little Mod Podge or other all-purpose to glue the fabric around the tin. Do several and you have a delightful group of matching containers for your bathroom or kitchen’s smallest items.

Odd pieces of gift wrap? Not to worry; they’re perfect for gluing onto tea tins and repurposing as gift boxes for small gifts or stocking stuffers like gold foil-wrapped candies, cookies, or a special ring for that special someone.

Need more ways to cover tins? Try stickers, paint, decoupage decals, twine for a rustic look, or a mass of beads, buttons or bows will do the trick. And, we saved our favorite idea for last: chalk paint! Once dry, you can mark on the tin what’s inside!

Repurpose

The possibilities are endless, yet we’re listing tin-sational ideas for everywhere in your home or workplace, garden or office. Let us know if we’ve missed listing YOUR favorite repurposing idea.

Handy?

Drill or punch a small hole in the top, glue the lid onto the tin, and glue in a tree hook and you have the perfect assortment of ornaments to decorate a tree or wreath.

Or, skip the hook and store balls of twine, yarn, or crochet thread and pull one end through the hole. Neat!

If you have the tools to make cut-outs in tea tins, consider repurposing them as lights for nursery or bathroom or dark hallway. Add a small light bulb and a couple swag hooks and POW! Charm and delight. (Yes, we pun.)

Got Small Stuff? Store It in a Tea Tin!

The ideas for what to fill up a tea tin are endless, but these are some of our favorites: candies, mints, small cookies, raisins or other small dried fruit; seeds for cooking or for planting in the garden; small matchbooks, incense cones, or potpourri.

To be sure, some areas of the home cry out for orderly, neat ways to keep all those little yet oh-so-necessary items at hand, such as:

COMPUTER “STUFF”

HOUSEHOLD HARDWARE

Nails, screws, nuts, bolts, nails, cup hooks, brackets, and picture holders.

SEWING NOTIONS

Purse kits of sewing materials, safety pins, buttons, snaps, zippers, Velcro rolls or cloth tape measures, needles, threads, scissors.

CRAFT CENTER

Tubes of paint, brushes, rolls of wasabi tape, pens, pencils, and markers; palette knives and bone folders, glue sticks, cut out words or images for collaging, decorative scraps of lace or handmade papers, and anything else that can stand up or fill up a tin.

COINS

Use one tin each for pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. Use a larger tin for quarters if you use them for laundry or keep a tin of quarters in the glove compartment of your car for spare change for meters or coin-operated car washes.

GROOMING FOR HIM OR HER

Tea tins are perfect caddies for toothbrushes and toothpaste, hairbrushes, grooming scissors or tweezers; keep shirt stays, cuff links, vitamins or pills tidy and accessible; store hairpins and barrettes; lipsticks, gloss and eye shadows or cotton pads, bandages, Q-tips, and ointments in easy reach.

MORE, MORE, MORE!

Tea Tins are Perfect Herb Planters. Fill tea tins with fresh soil, plant seeds or cuttings of your favorite herbs, and set on a window ledge. Dill, parsley, green onions, chives, thyme or mint are ideal. Tea tins make delightful containers for small floral arrangements to spread joy around the house, give to your hostess when visiting or to provide as charming favors for your next tea party.

Bring order to your desk: Glue plain colored paper or inexpensive brown kraft paper around the tin and dedicate a tin each in which to pop in batteries, paper clips, business cards, Post-it notes, staples, scotch tape refills, fountain pen cartridges, or other little things that tend to get lost. To help identify what’s IN the tins, draw a fun rendition of the item, like a credit card, or when possible, glue a sample, like a rubber band, onto the paper. Easy peasy!

Organize the Kitchen: Using the same ideas noted above for covering the tins, use tea tins to keep spices and finishing salts fresh at-the-ready. If you’re a baker, then you probably have loads of yeast packets, large boxes of baking soda, and baking powder. They’re all necessary but often take up much space. Keep the big boxes in the pantry, and use converted tea tins on the counter where you bake. Reduces waste, lifting hefty boxes, and keeps these vital ingredients fresh.

We all love takeout, but those little packets of soy sauce, ketchup, mustard and other condiments can pile up. Tea tins to the rescue and tidiness reigns. Tea tins, plain or re-decorated, are terrific containers to store packets of sweeteners or sugars. And, the tin is a pretty addition to the dining table or afternoon tea snack.

Best of all, tea tins are small enough to set up on the counter so that it’s easy to find like strawberry hullers, tiny whisks, honey spoons, tea scoops, and fruit or butter knives that can get lost in a cutlery drawer.