Happy Tinth Anniversary!

This past Thursday, Mr. Gren and I celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary. In my perfect world, we would have taken a trip to Paris (and for anyone looking to go, January-March is a great time if you can handle the rain). Obviously, that was not in the cards this year. Out of curiosity, I looked up the traditional gift theme for the 10th anniversary. If you’re quick on your feet or just well-versed in etiquette, you already know that it’s tin. Tin for ten. Get it? har har. Once I got over the pun, I also noted the irony for our particular situation. I was expecting to find something like crystal or some kind of actual precious metal. Nope, it’s tin. For the poor people. I was joking with some friends that I should make Mr. Gren something out of a tin can as an anniversary gift. They thought that was hilarious and that was all the motivation I needed.

When it comes to tin can crafts, the obvious one is a pencil holder. But come on, we don’t even have a desk, so where are we going to put said pencil holder? I briefly considered doing a variation of my tin-punch Christmas decorations, but that didn’t seem quite right either. I don’t have tin snips, so I couldn’t do anything real fancy or that required altering the shape of the can. I browsed around online for a little bit and found someone had made a wine rack out of cans. That’s the one! There were no real instructions or anything, just a photo. Good enough, I can figure it out from there.

First, I needed at least three larger-than-normal cans. I knew I had one pumpkin can left from Christmas which we had used as an emergency candle holder when the power went out. I knocked the old wax out of it, and there was can #1. I dug through my recycle bin and couldn’t find any empty ones large enough, so the next stop was my pantry shelves. I found a large can of peaches and a can of beef stew. I emptied the peaches and stew into containers and stuck them in the fridge and then got the cans all cleaned up and the bottoms removed.

My original thought for joining them all together was to solder them. I knew that Mr. Gren had a small soldering iron around somewhere. I dug through his tools until I found it and a small coil of solder. The last time I soldered anything was in 8th grade Industrial Tech, but I didn’t remember it being real difficult. Well, Mr. Gren’s soldering iron didn’t feel like cooperating. It took forever to heat up and then was super finicky about melting the solder. I was running out of time before Mr. Gren would get home from picking up Rana at school, so I had to abandon that tack. Enter the hot glue gun. I used an entire stick of glue on these cans because I wanted to make sure they were good and stuck together. Then I glued little beer cap feet onto the bottom of the contraption. I’m going to have to pry a couple off and reset them because it wobbles a little bit, but it’s functional for now.

A poor man's wine rack only holds three bottles

For some inexplicable reason, I save all beer and pop caps. It's probably a sickness.

Don't you agree that the ribbon makes it more festive?

Happy anniversary, Mr. Gren! Maybe next year I’ll get really fancy and make you something out of empty thread spools.

And, in case anyone wondered, we ate the peaches and beef stew for dinner on Saturday.