Skeleton Trick Or Treat Tins

My usual crafting motto is “less is more”, however that certainly isn’t the case with these Halloween Trick or Treat tins, I am afraid I got totally carried away, but if you can’t get carried away for Halloween, when can you?

The asking price for used cigar tins (or similar) on eBay is stupid!  My husband used to smoke Café Crème cigars and if I’d kept all the tins I threw away when I moved, I’d be a very, very, rich lady, with prices going from about £5 to over £12, madness!  So, when I spotted these 2cm deep cigar tins on eBay for just £1 for ten, plus £3.80 P & P, I knew they were a bargain, so I bought 20. The lady offered me more, but I declined, but now I am wishing I’d bitten her hand off!  However, a bargain isn’t a bargain unless you use what you’ve bought and these have been sitting in my drawer since August last year, so they needed to be used.

My first thought was Halloween and since I also had a can of black spray paint (£2.69) it was a no brainer.  I couldn’t believe how easily and well the paint went on, the tins only needed one coat on the back, front and the inside.

With the tins beautifully covered, (the one above was my first effort where I scratched it to add some wear and age, before I decided the tins didn’t really need it) I then proceeded to edge the tins with slime using Dovecrafts green Enamel Effect 3D paint.

While the slime was drying I started to paint/colour various MDF shapes (eBay). I painted the ghosts and skeletons white and then a layer of Ranger Glossy Accents.  I did find that the white wasn’t as clear/sharp as if I had just used white Ranger Glossy Enamel on its own, but with so many shapes to do I was being mean with my enamel!

The other shapes I coloured with orange and black Sharpie pens (bats and pumpkins etc.) followed by more Glossy Accents

With everything totally dry I was then able to add the shapes on to the front of the tins using B-7000 glue to make sure I got a really secure fix…….

….. before adding the writing using a fine tipped, white, Posca pen, a few more wooden shapes and then small, coloured confetti stars and clusters of three white dots to fill in the empty spaces and bring the whole design together.

With the fronts done, I looked at the inside of the tins and that’s when I think I got carried away, taking scraps of Halloween themed papers, gluing them into the lid and bottom of the tin and then edging with more green or purple Dovecraft Enamel Effects and writing “Boo” in black.

Then came all the embellishment, silver confetti webs, wooden spiders, bats and cauldrons with clear, flat back gems bubbling out ………

……. followed by lots of stars, swirls and dots, again using a white Posca pen to fill the area around the centres. I also used a little gold chrome pen on the flames/smoke coming from the cauldrons.

Now the tins are finished I need to be patient and wait for all the foil wrapped Halloween sweets to hit the shops to fill them with. 

I am dead chuffed with how these turned out, Iris and Bertie are going to love them with a few treats inside and when they’re gone they will have a spooky box to put all their little treasures in afterwards.  I have only have another four tins left over, I wonder if I could do something similar for Christmas?  I really wish I’d bought some more tins when I had a chance, now I have realised their potential!