Ring Pull Tin #1

Guess you’ve heard that before on this site: In my opinion a present should be recocnisable as a present already in the packaging, therefore sometimes that’s the part I’m contributing.

Why a Ring Pull Tin?

I’ve found that ring pull tins are a great way to wrap something in. They look good just by themselves and add the thrill of opening something that’s obviously been factory sealed.

“But how do you get the stuff IN if it’s sealed?” you may ask.
Well, every time I have a ring pull tin I want to open, in my mind I go through the tins I’ve saved so far, and if the new one has either an interesting form factor (e.g. tall and thin) or if I don’t have it already size-wise, I don’t pull the ring.

Instead I use a Tupperware can opener and open the tin from the back end.
This results in a tin with the ring pull top still intact and a bottom lid that has no sharp edges.

The label

A big part of the tin present is the personalized label. Here you see one for my friend Ursina’s birthday. I usually try to make them look a little worn (just my kind of stile I guess) and try to incorporate the presentee’s fave colors as well.

So the next thing is designing the label and putting it on the tin with the pull ring facing up…

I think it’s also important to add some form of realism, therefore there’s always some kind of nutrition info or manufacturer data on the label as well.

Making it real

Then I glue some cardboard on the bottom lid as an “inner guide”, deck it with some nice tissue paper and insert the gifts. Below you see this in detail. The “actual” present was a lip balm from The Body Shop and two cinema tickets.

Here are some more shots for comparison (note the actual tin on it’s head):

Finally I cover the bottom lid rim with my good friend Araldite (2k epoxy resin), carefully slide the tin on from the top and then press the whole thing really hard for a short  time. After the removal of overflowing Araldite I usually place some heavy books or the likes on top till the resin has cured (about 10 to 15 mins).

SuperGlue usually also works quite well, though the 2K epoxy heps filling those open cracks stemming from the can opener bending the metal at times

Et voilà: A perfect present 🙂