An altered state is a good thing

Good morning friends.  I know I keep saying this, but I just want to say it one more time.  We had such a great time with the new store front and the blog hop and everyone here at Clear Dollar Stamps would like to say a big thank you and hope that you had as much fun!

I have to be honest and say that altering is just something I don't do very often.  I love the idea of it, but I can never seem to find the right thing to fit into the right container - know what I mean?  That is until now.  I'm sharing a project with you that I did for a friend of mine as a little thank you.  I wanted to make cookies and as I was trying to figure out what type of cookies to make I glanced at an empty coffee jar that I had.  I had set it aside a while back, but like I said I had no idea what to use it for. 

I decided to make Snickerdoodles because I figured they would ship well.  The recipe I used is a Betty Crocker recipe, and I have to say this was the second recipe I made... the first one I did not like so I won't even go into that.

Snickerdoodles

1 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter - (softened but still chilled)
1/4 cup of shortening
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3 Tbls sugar
3 tsp cinnamon

Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Combine flour, cream of tartar, soda, and salt.  Whisk together and set aside. Mix shortening, butter, 1 1/2 cups sugar until blended (1 -2 minutes).  Add eggs and mix thoroughly. 

Shape dough into 1" balls.  Roll in the sugar and cinnamon mixture.  Place 2" apart on ungreased baking sheet.  Bake 8 to 10 minutes.  These will puff up at first and then flatten.

*hints

• I always line my cookie pans with parchment paper.  If you can't find any you can always ask your local bakery to see if they will sell you some.  They will be in large sheets but you can easily cut them in half to fit your pans.
• These can be baked in balls or flattened.  I used the bottom of a nice glass to flatten my cookies
• Omit salt if you end up using salted butter

So now for my altered coffee can.  This particular coffee can is from a local store here in the NW called Trader Joes.   We LOVE this store.

I have two pictures of supplies because I seem to change things as I go and I'm sure I'm missing something (sorry)
  

The first thing` that you need to do is simply measure your cardstock.  Unfortunately, my 12x12 wasn't long enough to fit all the way around, but I just filled in later.  So all I really needed to do was measure the height of my can.

I decided to use my  Scor-tape because I didn't want it to ever come off! 

I am also addicted to my Mini Misters.  This specific cardstock is SU! and pretty substantial so I lightly sprayed the outside with water before I wrapped it around my can.  All this does is just naturally curl my paper just a bit and makes it a little more pliable.

I did a quick dry run of my main piece  to see what my gap would be and then cut a matching piece approximately 1/2" wider than my gap on both sides.

More Scor-tape.

Then just attach to the can.

Then just wrap on around.

At this point, decorating is the limit.  I decided to create a top and bottom border with some coordinating  cardstock.  I used an EK Success punch to create the scallops.  This was the only border punch I could get to go through this cardstock.

Then I decided to accent my can with a really cute sentiment (fluttering by with a thankful heart)  from a stamp set called Charlie Daisy.  My focal images were going to be butterflies from the set called Beautiful Butterflies and this sentiment would work perfectly.

If I had thought ahead I would have stamped first, but I didn't (lol).  BUT... this worked out just as nicely.  This is why I love my clear stamps.  I was able to stamp on my coffee can after the fact. 

Just start at one end and then rock ever so slightly to the other side as you are stamping.

As I stated earlier, I wanted to use the Beautiful Butterflies set to decorate my can.  I stamped most of the images in the set in several colors on a large piece of white cardstock - no rhyme or reason because I planned on cutting them out. 

 

Once they were cut, I wanted to attach them to my can, but I also wanted a decent amount of surface to be attached so I created this surface on each of the butterflies that I used.

I used my scor-pal to create the creases. 

 

Just add a piece of scor-tape (1/8")

 

Just attach to project.  I really like this because it allowed for the butterflies to be flattened if necessary and then lifted up later.  Remember, I did indeed package this puppy up and mail it across the country.

One more thing, I wanted to cover the lid and the bottom with some paper too.  It just happened to work that the largest circle in the large size of circle nesties fit my lid!  I used my zip dry for this purpose.

Also, sorry to switch things on you, but it wasn't until after the fact that I realize my lid was green and did not go well with my chosen paper so I opted to swap out a clear lid from another can.

 

Then I decided to wrap my cookies in some saran wrap and then I took some shrink wrap and wrapped the entire stack of cookies again.  I took my heat gun and gently shrank my wrap.

 

 

And finally, I made a quickie card to go along.  Used an extra butterfly I had and a stamp set called Words of Gratitude as well as the Labels Four Nestability.

 

Well that's it for today.  I hope you find a good altered state to be in (lol).

One more reminder that the BLOG HOP grand prize is still open and a winner will be drawn on August 31st.  Details can be found HERE.

Thanks for joining me  today.

Katie signing off for Clearly iStamp.

Comments

[sandyh50]

What a great project!

[Nannette Derrick]

Great idea for a cookie container! Love the butterflies!

[cjs]

Those are the BEST Butterfly stamps EVER! That canister & card are SUPER cute, too!!

[Vicki Conquest]

Gorgeous look girl! Now we all have hankerings for Snickerdoodles! I think I am going to have to scraplift that item for my Christmas gifts this year. And I do love my butterflies. I really like it when a stamp set comes out nice looking in use. Keep up the beautiful and very FUN tutorials!
Vicki C

[Ryann Salamon]

Not only do your cookies look good enough to eat (yum!) but your altered container is so cute!! Great job Katie!

[Nancy S]

Great idea! I'm always looking for something different to go along with the gift cards for my college-age grandkids at Christmas & Birthdays!
NancyS (momsnack)

[Grace Nywening]

What a great project and yummy too! Thanks for sharing it with us!

[Robin]

that is really awesome. We don't drink coffee, however I always have lots of empty containers from other foods, that I could use. Great Idea!

[Sue a/k/a MOUSEMOM40]

How adorable! This is a great idea for the holidays!

[Mary C. Anderson]

Your cookie tin came out very pretty. Thank you for posting the cookie recipe. It sounds delicious. Your new store front is awesome!

Mary

[antjeegypt]

That is such a lovely idea - thanks for giving us a workshop up to the cookie receipt... I totally love the whole project! Will now have a look at the bloghop...

[SMK]

this is awesome!!! hehe totally craving snickerdoodles now :P your container turned out simply beautiful, love it!

[Cassie]

Wow, Katie, that is outstanding! I love your idea, and now I want to find some of those coffee containers ;D (and eat snickerdoodles)

[Candy Fosta]

Great way to show how to create gift packaging from something you have on hand! Like the tip on using the score pal on the butterfly bodies.

[Silvia Mabie]

this is just gorgeous!!!! And now I would like some snickerdooles!!! Love the papers you used! Super fab!!!