How to Make Use of an Empty Mint Tin

I am addicted to little mints of all shapes, sizes and flavors and I had been keeping mint tins since Altoids were first introduced into my life! Those little tins can be useful for many, many things. My mother raised me to be creative and crafty, so I decided to share a few of the ideas I had come up with and enjoyed creating with the children in my family.

Kids love coloring - so I painted a few of the tins all white one day and as soon as they were dry I handed some of my younger cousins some markers and let them go to town. You tell them to be creative and you'd be amazed at what their little minds will come up with. At the end of our art session I had one tin with polka dots, one with zigzags and one with a green sun and pink clouds. Let them have fun.

During that same arts and crafts time with my cousins we also painted a few with different colors. Enamel paints work best as they stick better to the metal and don't chip off as easily. Once the tins were dry I let the kids decorate them however they wanted - they were provided mini jewels, colored cotton balls, glitter pens, feathers, markers and lots of other decorative things. It was fun watching them be creative.

My dad has a mostly metal workspace in the garage for his "fix it" projects. One day while I was out there searching high and low for a particular type of screw (they were all thrown into one big box) I decided to put some more mint tins to use. I ran to the store and came home with sticky back magnets (which were very cheap). I cut them into tiny squares and I stuck them to the backs of the tins. I took the tins out to the garage and stuck them in places randomly around his shop with a note that said "Here you go, now organize". The screws, nails, and every other small things he could think of now have homes inside the little tins and nothing gets lost because they are all stuck in place with the magnet.

For my boyfriends daughter, we let her decorate one of the tins and she kept it as a small piggy bank. Anytime she collected coins from the couch or grandpa or daddy, she would run and put them in her tin. Once it was full I would count the change and give it back to her in dollars and then we would take a trip to the store so she could spend her hard earned cash. Usually each time we emptied her can she had about 6 to 10 dollars worth of coins, so they hold a pretty decent amount. She was young at the time (about 3) so 6-10 dollars was an amazing amount of money for her. She called it her "pretty bank" since she had decorated it herself.

I even have 3 of them on my desk right one. One of them is holding my paper clips, one is holding stamps, the other is random things like tacks, staples and I think it even has a few pennies in it. They are great for organization!

I could probably come up with a million more ideas to list here but I'll leave it at this. At the least, use them for arts and crafts and build a special bonding time with your children!