Storing tea, sugar & green tea

You know that feeling you get when you're moving into a new house? And you ideally want everything to be new? Including the furniture and utensils and well, pretty much everything else. =)

I recently moved to England from Dubai and set up the house here with my husband. We got here a couple of months before our MBA classes started. And it was during this time that I got to put on my creative-crafts hat and get to work. =)

This was my way of getting everything around the house a new feeling, at the same time making sure that I wasn't spending on things that I could save up on. I do have thing for recycling and reusing, I won't lie! =)

So, amongst the many things I've made, this set is the most used of the lot.

Most people I know are consumers of some kind of warm beverage - tea, coffee, hot chocolate, green tea, etc. And most kitchens I've been to have some form of storage containers for these tea bags or coffee beans or coco powder. Needless to say, we needed such containers for our house as well. I did go out and look around for some containers that I could use, but I just wasn't convinced.

And then it struck me - why not try making these on my own? =)

The backdrop to this is that I'm a big, massive, absolutely crazy [bordering psychotic] consumer of Nutella.

Due to this, I have far too many empty bottles of Nutella lying around the house. And what better way to help the environment than to recycle and reuse to make these lovely storage containers!

Let's be honest here for a second - making these crafty-containers isn't rocket science. But sometimes a little guidance gives us exactly what we need to get our act together and make things. =) So, here goes!

What you'll need (supplies)

 

• old Nutella [or any other empty bottle / plastic] containers
• white school glue
• acrylic paint [you can use one color or mix and match with different colours]
• paint brushes
• mixing palette
• old newspaper

Procedure / steps

1. Wash thoroughly and dry the Nutella containers.

2. Cover your workstation with old newspaper so as to avoid any damage to it by paint spills.

3. Take a mixing palette, add a dash of your paint of choice, and add a bit of white school glue. The reason for adding white school glue here is that it'll help the paint stick to the container. Else, there is a possibility that every time you touch the container, a bit of the paint will come off. I haven't faced this problem, and again, this might be because of the white school glue. This somewhat acts like Mod Podge, but on a much lower and inexpensive level.

4. Now take the Nutella container and start applying thin, consistent paint coats to it.
Try to keep the paint coats as thin and as free-flowing as possible.
Carefully place the Nutella container upside down and coat the bottom of the container with paint.
Take special care to avoid paint going inside the container - you wouldn't want your sugar or tea bags taking on the color of the paint!

5. Let these sit till the paint is completely dry. The time frame here might vary depending upon the thickness of the paint coat applied, the temperature outside, etc.

6. Once these are completely dry, take on a contrasting color [poster paint or acrylic paint] and paint on the words. You can chose to use a stencil here or you can even take print outs / cut out of words and stick them on with the help of Mod Podge or superglue or something equivalent.

What'd I tell you - not rocket science! And I'm sure you already knew the steps before you even read them! But it's nice to see visuals and steps to potentially refer back to someday. =)

Alright, more crafty stuff that I haven't blogged yet will be coming up real soon. Meanwhile, if you get around to making these, do please drop in a comment and let me know. I'd love to see what you're creating!