truebluemeandyou:

erikaglover:

One of my favorite tumblr sites is True Blue Me and You… there are so many awesome DIY projects ideas and inspiration on this blog.  Earlier this week, I saw this reblog post  featuring a funny illustration by Sirin Thada.  They also had the amazing idea of recreating this in real life using an Altoids tin.  I thought it would make a funny stocking stuffer gift, so I gathered up a few supplies to make one of my own.

The Supplies:

• Altoids tin (sans Altoids)
• Rock
• Paper
• Scissors
• Foam, polyfil and / or felt

The supplies needed are simple and cheap!  I had everything on hand, with the exception of the Altoids… that set me back $2.99.  I had these scissors from a mini sewing kit I purchased from the dollar store a while back, and everything else was leftover from previous projects.

Rather then just cutting up little pieces of paper, I wanted to make mini lined sheets.  I measured out the size of paper I wanted and drew the lines with coloured pens.  I have a 1/8” hole punch which worked really well for creating “binder” holes along the left margin. I also ended up using a small jump ring to connect all of the little sheets together.

I love how the paper turned out - it’s so cute!  Definitely my favorite part of this project. 

After many failed attempts at writing out the caption part myself, I opted to type something up in Adobe Illustrator instead.  The font I used was Throw My Hands Up in the Air, a casual handwritten font by Kimberly Geswein.

I actually printed this on sticker paper, and used a dime to cut out the rounded corners.  One the sticker was cut out and applied to the top of the tine, it’s ready to be filled!

I cut down my piece of foam to the size of the tin, and layered a couple sheets of felt on top.  The great thing is that if you fill the base of the tin with a good amount of foam or felt, once the lid is closed everything stays nice and snug in place.

I felt the sticker alone on the front of the tin was a bit plain, so decided to make a cardstock sleeve for the outside.  I also cut out little labels for the items inside, and it was done!

I absolutely love it!  I almost don’t want to give it away.  I might have to make a couple more, and keep one for myself. 

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Resources:

• The font used is Throw My Hands Up in the Air, by Kimberly Geswein
• See the original illustration by Sirin Thada that inspired this project here
• Check out the reblog-post on True Blue Me & You here
• The original tumblr post by executions here.

Truebluemeandyou: Thank you for mentioning by site :) Most people would not have in a million years.

This thing looks like a lot of fun to make.