:CRAFTING: Love Pills...

With Valentine's Day only a couple days away, I thought I would share a little altered project that I made this year for Kaitlin to give to her grandparents (so, Grandmas and Pappas...please ask surprised when she gives these to you because I know you're probably going to see them here first...)

Anyway, when we recently emptied a Parmesan shaker, I thought it might be a neat thing to alter and came up with this:

Supplies:

• Parmesan container
• 12 oz. bag of M&M's
• Patterned papers of choice (I used My Mind's Eye.)
• 10 in. of lace or ribbon (I used Rusty Pickle.)
• Punches - 2.5 in. scallop oval, 2 in. oval, 1 in. circle
• Trimmer - scallop blade
• Ink - Colorbox
• Brads - Doodlebug
• Corner Rounder - Marvy
• Font - Journaling Font
• Adhesive - tape runner, foam dots

Instructions:

1. Cut your large piece of patterned paper to fit your container. For my container (it is the Great Value Brand from Walmart), I cut my paper to 10 in. x 4.5 in. You may want to measure your container if you are using a different brand or size. I used my scalloped edge blade on my trimmer on the top and bottom edges to add extra detail.
2. Ink edges and adhere to your container.
3. Cut your narrow band to wrap around the center. I cut mine to 10 in. x 1.5 in. Again, I used my scalloped edge blade on the top and bottom.
4. Ink edges and adhere to your container.
5. Print desired title, poem and cap labels on cardstock. If you'd like to save time and download mine for printing, you can do so here.
6. Punch out title using 2 in. oval punch. Ink edges.
7. Punch out 2.5 in. scalloped oval from coordinating cardstock or patterned paper. Ink edges.
8. Adhere title oval to scalloped oval.
9. Add decorative brad to title ovals.
10. Adhere to container as desired using dimensional adhesive. I centered mine along the top edge of the narrow band.
11. Trim poem, round the corners and ink edges. Adhere to container.
12. Punch out cap labels using 1 in" circle punch. Due to the smaller surface are on the 'sprinkle' tab, I slightly trimmed one side of the circle so that it would fit properly.
13. Ink edges and adhere tabs to the appropriate sides of the cap.
14. Adhere ribbon around the outside edge of the cap.

This was a fun and easy project that I think turned out really cute. Although I used mini m&m's for my containers, there are probably candies that would also work well. The main issue is finding ones that are small enough to fit through the 'sprinkle' side. Regular m&m's are too large. Red Hots would work well, I think, and might even be better considering the holiday.

Again, if you'd like to use my title, poem and labels to make your own "Love Pills" container in time for Valentine's Day, you can download them here.

If you do make one, I'd love to see your version of the craft. Come back and leave a link!