Tin Love

I have a soft spot for old tins.  I have a small (very small) collection, but each one is special to me.

Some have been passed down to me.  Others I have picked up at flea markets and thrift stores.  I like to use them for my small sewing notions (needles, threads, buttons, etc.).

I just love this little tin (flea market find) because of the picture on the lid:

It's entitled "The New Pony" and since I also have a soft spot for horses and ponies, I couldn't pass it up!  And look!  It's the perfect size for my spools of thread :)

I'm waiting for just the right thing to store in this little tin (below) which I found in my dad's workshop while clearing out his house.  I had to bend the lid a bit to get it to open and close again, but otherwise it's in fairly good shape.  Dad had all kinds of fancy little tobacco tins from England (he's a Yorkshire man), and I suppose they were from his father who smoked all his life.  Unfortunately, they were so abused and beyond cleaning/repairing from holding bits of metal and greasy gears, that I decided not to keep any except for this one:





Even the undersides of lids hold surprises:

My mom had a "Wonder Fruit Cake" tin just like the two below where she kept her embroidery floss.  The lower tin was my great aunt's whose entire house was a shrine to early farming life in Ontario.  I always loved Mom's "embroidery" tin with its fancy scroll pattern and the intense colours, so I was thrilled to come across this same tin of my aunt's.  Then while at the thrift store recently, I found another fruit cake tin in a slightly smaller size!!  Scooped it up without even thinking about it. 

This destinctive tin (below) holds all my needles for the machine and for hand sewing.  I love the raised textured pattern.

And finally, this is actually a lid from a tin (again from my great aunt) ... now how pretty is that ... I so love the silouette of this little maiden ... like a storybook heroine, and just to decorate the lid of a tin of oatmeal! 

Wendy