Standing Tin Can Shrines

Nothing gets thrown away at my house, and that’s usually a recipe for trouble. When my summer-longt cravings for a dish using canned chicken generated a leaning tower of empty tins, I had to turn them into something before they took over my work space. That something ended up as these little round standing shrines.

To make your own standing shrines, you’ll need:

• Clean, empty tin cans. I used 6oz. cans that hold tuna or chicken. It helps if you have a few extra tins besides those you’ll be turning into shrines.

• Tin Can Sheets from Ten Two Studios. I used the Maxed Out sheet for these samples.
• Wing nuts for feet. I used 3/8″-16 coarse wing nuts from the hardware store.
• Liquid Nails. This is also from the hardware store. It’s a paste-like glue designed to glue metal to metal.
• Double sided foam tape.
• E6000
• Assorted little embellishments for each shrine. I used small glass bottles, blocks, marbles, dice, gears—well, everything except the kitchen sink.

Glue two wing nuts to the bottom of each tin can. I found it easiest to lay one can on its back, and prop one up inside it on its side to do this. Glue the nuts with Liquid Nails, which is think enough to keep them from sliding down the side of the can. Position the nuts fairly close together—mine were about an inch or so apart. Let the tins dry overnight.

While the glue is drying, you can cut start working on the insides. Trace around the bottom outer edge of a tin to get the exact size of the background circle, and cut it out. Do a test fit to make sure it’s the right size for the can you’ve chosen.

Cut out the images and words you’d like to use on that background, and start thinking about placement.

I layered three pieces to make the flower, using foam tape between the layers to give the finished piece some dimension.

Once the glue on the wing nuts is dry, and they can be handled, you can start gluing the pieces inside. Start with the background circle, applying a bit of E6000 to at the center and outer edge. I used this glue rather than my usual glue stick because my cans were coated inside with a bit of white plastic. E6000 was the only thing that would stick to it!

Layer the images and words over the background by attaching them with foam tape. This will separate them just a bit from the background, and give the piece more dimension.

For this shrine, I edged the word with a bit of chalk ink, then added two tiny glass bottles filled with shiny things to go along with the shine theme.

This one also has a word edged with chalk ink. I added some tiny blocks at the bottom, bending the petals of the flower to stick out over them.

I overlapped some metal gears on the images for this shrine, to keep the circular motif in the background going.

Dice and some colored Chinese checker marbles decorate the base of this shrine. They’re held in place with E6000