Lovin' My Crafts: Mother's Day Upcycled Tin Cans

For Mother's Day this year, I decided to take the "a gift from the heart is best" approach.  While I would love to buy all the mother's in my life a fancy present to celebrate their day, my budget just doesn't allow that.  So this year I turned to some upcycling ideas.  I wouldn't say that I'm a pack rat but I definitely have a hard time throwing something away if I feel like it has another use.  Right now I've been trying to figure out what I could do with tin cans.

This is what I came up with.

I first washed the cans in warm water with vinegar and dish soap.  I dried them with a clean towel and then let them air dry.

Once completely dry, I painted them with Krylon Acrylic Latex Enamel which is supposed to work on metal, plastic, glass and just about anything else.  In order to eliminate as many paintbrush streaks as possible, I used a sponge brush which worked really well.

I have small hands so I was able to put the can over my hand and then twist my wrist as I painted.  That also worked great because I could paint the whole can without getting fingerprints everywhere.  I did two coats of paint which covered nicely without making it too thick.  The paint requires that you wait six hours between coats and really needs about 24 hours to dry without feeling tacky so plan ahead and make sure to give yourself enough time.

While the painted cans ended up being pretty neat all by themselves, I decided to put a band of ribbon and a button on them to make it look a little nicer than just a painted tin can.  I hot glued both on but before gluing the button I wound threat through the holes so that it would look like it was sewn on to the ribbon.

To complete my mother's day gift I planted flowers in the cans.  I didn't add much extra dirt so that the recipients could either keep them in the can or pull them out and add the flowers to their own gardens.  These ones went to my mom, my husband's mom and my sister-in-law.  All in all, I think they turned out pretty cute for my first upcycling project.

Lovin' to Cook: Steak & Green Pepper Stromboli

I found a recipe on the Kraft website that inspired the following creation.  I love bread and anything wrapped in bread is definitely a must try.  The recipe looked good but I'm not much of a turkey and cheese girl so I decided to change the filling to steak, green pepper, onions and Swiss cheese.  I figured it would make a large enough meal that we'd have plenty of left overs for lunch but it was so good that we ate the whole thing.  I've made it twice now so the recipe below reflects not only a change in filling but some tweaks that I made.  Maybe someday I'll try the Kraft version but I thought my creation was pretty darn tasty.

R ecipe	Steak & Green Pepper Stromboli
Ingredients:
1 green pepper, cut in strips then cut strips in half 1 onion, sliced 2 cans refrigerated pizza dough 1 package thin round steaks, sliced into strips		Swiss cheese slices Salt and pepper to taste 1 egg
Directions:
Heat oven to 400 degrees. In a warmed medium sized pan sprayed lightly with cooking spray, cook the steak strips until about halfway done.  Salt and pepper while still pink to allow the seasoning to cook into the meat.  Add the green pepper and onion pieces.  Continue to cook until meat is done and peppers and onions are a bit soft but still crispy. Open one roll of the pizza dough and place it on a cookie sheet.  Carefully press the dough out evenly (it doesn't need to fill the whole cookie sheet, just press it into a long, skinny strip that isn't too thick).  Cover the pizza dough with thin slices of Swiss cheese – leave about an inch around each edge of plain dough without cheese. Spoon the meat and veggie filling onto the dough and spread it evenly.  You can top with additional Swiss cheese if you like. Open the second roll of pizza dough and place it on top of everything.  Stretch it so that it’s roughly the same size and shape as your bottom dough.  Pinch both layers of dough together all around the edges so the meat, veggies and cheese are sealed inside. Crack the egg into a small bowl and add about half a teaspoon of water.  Beat well and then brush the egg on to the top of the dough.  You may have egg left over depending on the size of your dough roll. Bake for 25 minutes or until dough is nicely golden brown.  Let cool for five minutes and then cut the roll in slices the size of your choosing and enjoy!

Lovin' to Organize: Plastic Bag Touchdown

We save our plastic grocery bags to use in our trashcans.  Most of our community seems to hate those poor plastic bags but we love them.  Not only do they fit great in the smaller trashcans that we have throughout our house but they also save us from having to buy additional plastic garbage bags.  Usually after our trips to the grocery store, the bags get wadded up and thrown under the kitchen sink.  But no longer is that the case after I opened the cupboards and had them practically explode on me.  I figured there had to be a better way to store them that would make them easily accessible but not allow them to take over.

So as usual, I turned to my various sources on the Internet and found someone who mentioned that you could fold plastic bags into triangles like you would a paper football.  I decided that I'd try it and so I grabbed a handful of my overflowing stash of bags.

To my surprise, it worked!  And now every time I have an empty plastic bag I just fold it up into a football and throw it in the Ziploc bag that now stores all my extras.  They stay folded and are easy to grab.  I've actually started keeping one in my purse just in case I need an extra bag for something.

I thought it was fairly easy to figure out how to fold these (I showed my mom and I think she thought I was crazy!).  However, not everyone grew up with paper football folding brothers so comment below if you want step-by-step instructions added to this post.