Making Kitchen Canisters: Easy-to-Make Gifts

Not long ago as I was drifting around the plant department of a well-known store. I accidentally made a kitchen canister out of the flower pots in my shopping cart. A few minutes later, there I was, sitting on the floor in front of the flower pots display making lots of kitchen canisters to see which styles looked the nicest.

Easy Gift Description:

As it turns out, flower pot drip pans will fit as lids on top of flower pots; you can turn pretty glazed flower pots into kitchen canisters pretty quickly, or choose to buy the plain terracotta flower pot choices to create art with instead. Finished canisters come out looking nice, they are inexpensive, and canisters make great cookie stuffed easy gifts.

You Need:

Easy gift canister pot and saucer. (See below.)
Handle (See below.)
Seal (See below, optional.)
Hole plug (See below.)
Paint, glue, plastic or felt as desired.

Easy Gift Canister Pot and Saucer:

Visit you favorite plant store or plant department and experiment with the available flower pot styles and available flower pot saucers until you find the perfect choices for your easy gift canister.

Ideas: I love the look of the blue and white ceramic pots that are bulbous around the middle for easy gifts. The extremely tiny terracotta pots can be used for bulk spices, the oblong terracotta pots make nice spaghetti or disposable chop stick holders, and the really big pots can be turned into one super-classy easy gift dry pet food stash place.

As you are trying different pot styles to see what easy gift canister style is perfect for your needs, remember that most stores sell the plant saucers as separate items from the pots; it is fine to mix sizes to achieve the perfect lid fit for your easy gift canister.

Easy Gift Canister Handle:

You may want a handle on top of your easy gift canister lid. Flat backed ceramic cabinet knobs can be glued on, flat backed wood knobs can be painted in fun colors and glued on, classy flat backed metal handles can be glued on, or maybe you can find decorative large craft bead that you'd like to use as a handle on your easy gift canister.

Easy Gift Canister Sealer:

For some of the easy gift canister pot and saucer combinations, it is possible to buy a rubber gasket or a piece of rubber window insulation (in white) from a hardware store that can be glued to make the lid fit with an airtight seal. This works best on the easy gift canisters that have lids that fit on overlapping a little bit.

Easy Gift Hole Plug:

Your flower pot will normally come with a drain hole in the bottom that you will want to find a plug for. Plugs can be recycled plastic caps from other bottles in your kitchen that are glued into the hole, corks, wax, clay and contact paper... Or, the bottom of your easy gift canister can have a coffee lid cut to fit, and then a piece of felt glued over the plastic to hide the plastic and to protect your counter top.

Easy Gift Assembly:

Terracotta Canister Pots: You can paint your terracotta plain clay flowerpots in any fun craft manner that you would like to use. You will want to put on two coats of paint inside and out, and add some kind of a lacquer sealing product over the top of your paint. Use Liquid Nails or Gorilla Glue to attach the handle to the lid for a strong fit. Inside of the lid on your painted easy gift canister you can paint a special note to your friend, or sign and date your artwork.

Ceramic Canister Pots: Glue your handle on with Liquid Nails or Gorilla Glue for a strong fit, plug your hole in one of the ways explained above, glue on a gasket if you would like as explained above, and you are done. You might want to get a paint pen out and leave a personal note to your friend inside of the lid, or sign and date your artwork.