How to make a crown
If you have carefully cleaned your tin cans and taken off the paper labels you may start directly with their transformation into crowns. To divide the circumference equally for the crown’s tips you may work two different methods. In both cases you will need a stripe of paper as high as the can and covering its circumference. For eight tips you then need to fold the stripe in half twice. Re-open it and fold the four segments in halves again to get eight segments in total. Draw a line for the tips’ height and draw triangles from each segment’s centerpoint to the auxiliary line. For an odd number of tips you need to divide the paper stripe’s length with the number of tips and draw them with a ruler to be able to draw and cut the triangles.
For small cans I prefer eight tips but for the largest cans, found in a staff canteen, I’d take only six points because together with the large cotton wool or wooden balls this makes a more harmonious look. (The foto shows a pattern with 6 points on one and 7 points on the opposite side. Regarding the desired number of tips you just need to place this side at the top of your can.) Now just cover the can with your pattern and draw the tips’ lines with a permanent marker.
Cut them out with your tin snips. Be careful when cutting because there may be small edges which are rather sharp. If you want to use your crowns for a longer period then you should chamfer the tips’ sides with a file or a grindstone. Afterwards you may glue the cotton-wool or woodn balls with some hot glue.
To get the vintage look you need to paint the cans. Give black, white and silver grey acrylic colour on a plate and take them up with a piece of sponge without mixing the colours. Dab the colors on your can and when still a bit moist just dust with some baby powder. Get rid of excessive powder by tapping the can’s bottom.
After the color dried you may plant some flowers inside or just decorate it with cut flowers and leaves. Ribbons and small pendants will make a lovely center piece or room decoration. You may as well put a tea light holder inside.
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