Stitch a Sweet Planter Made from a Tin Can

I love a good upcycling project, and using tin cans as planters or to organize things on a desk is a great way to reuse them and gives you a little canvas to be creative on as well.

Julie from Sum of their Stories used an old instant coffee tin, took off the label, stitched up some cute flowers and attached the cross stitch to the tin, then used it as a planter. It’s really cute but I’m not sure I would trust a tin to be a good planter (she suggests making sure you use ones that are water-tight or using a liner inside, but I would think having drainage would be important) but she’s made a few so I guess they work fine.

This idea would also be cute for a pencil cup on a desk, to store paint brushes in your child’s art area, even to hold utensils in the kitchen. It’s an easy way to add a bit of cuteness to a standard upcycle.

What do you think? What would you use this project for? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

[Photo via Sum of their Stories.]

Looking for more Coffee Cross Stitch Patterns? Check these out on Etsy.

I was recently doing a scroll through some crafting websites that I follow and I came across this amazing collection of cross stitch job patterns from Koekoek. It includes more than 100 different jobs, sports and hobbies, and these would be so much fun to personalize and stitch up for friends, family and co-workers.

You’ll find everything from occupations like doctor, fireman, maternity nurse, tax lawyer and librarian to sports like swimming, fishing and beach volleyball.

There’s pattern for watching marathon amounts of Netflix, doing triathlons (basically the same thing, right?), teaching geography, graphic design and catching Pokemon. Among many others.

The designs are categorized by medical professions, office jobs, stitch a sport (which includes other hobbies) and education professions, or you can just scroll through all the patterns to see the variety. Check out all the designs on their website, or scroll down on this page to see them in categories and with more details.

They suggest working these with a five inch hoop using 14 count cross stitch fabric or 28 count evenweave stitched over two threads for a fancier look. The number of colors needed for each design varies, but they are pretty small projects so there’s generally not a ton of detail.

The patterns also include text for what the image is showing like “the knitter” or “the veterinarian,” but they also have a post about how to personalize the designs with different text such as the person’s name, a date or a quote. There’s also a full bask stitch alphabet included in the post so you can chart out your own text.

And while the designs show specific people, you can change up details like hair color, clothing color and eye color if you want to make it look more like the person you intend to give it to. You can also purchase custom cross stitch kits from them to make the project exactly the way you want it without having to do the work yourself.

I think this is such a fun idea for a graduation gift or a holiday gift. If you check it out I’d love to know which characters you are stitching!

[Photo: Koekoek]

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