Jan Hicks, Scrap Girls' resident altering guru and product designer, made all of these altered paint can gift containers and clip boards using Scrap Girls printables.

Printable papers include Betsy Lombardi's Fresco (retired) and Tinge of Floral (retired) sets as well as Valerie Randall's UnTeal Forever Collection.

These Christmas gift cans include printable papers from Ann Hetzel Gunkel's Vintage Christmas Collection (retired) and Betsy Lombardi's XMas Collection (retired).

--From the message board--

I made the clipboards to be used, sort of, but maybe not in the traditional way. Under the clip on the top I put a 2005 planner, and that can be taken off, and put back on. Then I made the little envelope and put blank index cards in there for notes. I also "altered" a pen and attached it. There are pens out there that you can unscrew the end cap and roll up a piece of paper and slide it in!

For the clipboards, I painted them all first with a primer. Then painted them with acrylic paint, and then I put crackle medium on some, and painted another color of acrylic paint on top of that.

The adhesive that I used for both the cans and the clipboards is Diamond Glaze. That stuff sticks! Boy! On the clipboards, I also decoupaged two layers over the papers after I glued them on.

The decoupage really helps to give a nice, durable finish.

- Jan Hicks

Cans O' Cash by Ro

Supplies:

• Ochre Winfree Collection Biggie - retired (Can on left)
• Fountain Pen Collection Biggie (Can on right)
• Colorbox stamping ink
• Spray adhesive
• Craft knife
• Glue dots

My oldest two sons are all grown up and are at the stage of life where they need cash for Christmas more than anything else. Of course, they are getting a couple of other small presents from Santa, but I wanted the "grubby money-giving exercise" to be more interesting than simply handing them a card with a check in it.

So I went to the bank today, got their Christmas money in $1 bills (tee hee), went next door to Lowe's and picked up a couple of empty paint cans, and came home and decorated the cans.

They only took about a hour to complete both cans (printing, cutting, gluing and everything). It was fast. My kids are dying to know what I am doing in here, though, because I hammered the lids down tight with my scrapbooking hammer.

This isn't all there is to the story because the boys are going to be handed a card. Inside of the the card is going to be a clue. The clue will be a photo that simply says, "Go here."

When they arrive at that spot, they will get another clue with the words, "Go here."

As you can see, I took photos from around the house of small room details. (We'll see how observant these boys really have been about their home.)

Tutorial uses: