Studio Tuesday - Ribbon wrapped coffee can tutorial

It's not February anymore, but I never got around to posting this:

He's holding his Valentine container that we made together. Here's a side view:

And here's the top. I let him use my label maker:

We stayed up past his bedtime making it the night before his Valentine's party at school. He enjoyed using the hot glue gun (maybe a little too much) and it was tedious and messy, but when I tucked him in that night he said, "You know mom, I like making stuff with you. We should do that every night." Awww. He was so proud of it when he took it to school the next day.

Coffee cans are great for storing notions and other little things. There are lots of ways you can spruce up a plain old utilitarian can. I recently saw a beaded one Susan Beal posted on CraftStylish and some she made with bias tape and posted on her blog West Coast Crafty.

I've made these over the years and they've held up nicely:

They hold my elastic and bottle caps.

Wanna make your own? It's easy. Just get some ribbon, measure it to fit around the can, and line it up so it fits together and covers the surface.

Then start gluing it down.

I use hot glue, doing an inch at a time, burning myself occasionally. You could try other craft glues if you like. It's going to be messy either way.

If you can line up the edges nice and neat, then more power to you. I can't. You can cover it with a ribbon though, so don't worry if this part isn't pretty.


You'll probably go through about 10 sticks of hot glue, so have them ready. Also, don't let the glue sit too long before you press the ribbon down, or it won't stick right. When you've covered the entire can, glue the end of a ribbon over the edges like this:


Then fold it over and glue it down. When you get to the end, fold it under and glue it down so all your raw edges are nicely hidden.

It'll look like this:


Here's the front:

I didn't like the words on the lid so I found this picture in an old Ladies Home Journal:

I cut out part of the image to fit inside the circle:

and Mod Podged it down.

And here's how it turned out:

Here they are all together: