16. Decoupage Cake Tin

Time:  Under 1 hour
Cost: Under $5

This tutorial will show you how to make an old cake tin a bit fancy. It uses all recycled materials and costs almost nothing. Let's get started!

Materials:

1 metal cake or biscuit tin
1 old magazine or newspaper
Glue
Clear varnish

Here we go...


1. Give your tin a good clean and make sure it's nice and dry before you start

2. I found this great "Free Lance New Zealand" magazine from 1937 at the Marrickville Markets on Mothers Day. There are so many fantastic advertisements and photographs in it, I was almost too scared to cut into it for this project. I knew though, that if I didn't use it for something it would sit somewhere where it was kept safe, and not really loved or enjoyed.

Cut out your images carefully. Try and get some different shapes - some squares, some ovals, and include some text if you like the look of it.

3. Have a play with placing your images on the lid of the tin and when you're happy, take a digital photo so you can refer back to it when it's time to glue everything down.

4. Glue your images down carefully starting with the background first. If your paper is old be extra careful when gluing so that you don't rip anything.

5. I used a roller to smooth out any bubbles, but if the odd one or two pops up don't worry about it! It's meant to look old and home made so if you have creases just smooth them out as best you can and carry on.

6. Wait for everything to dry completely or use a hair dryer to speed things up.

7. Give your lid 2 or 3 coats of varnish (over the images but varnishing the metal border isn't necessary).  There might be dark patches or it may look like the text from the underside is coming through but this is OK, when it dries it'll lighten up again.

8. Once it's dry you can lightly sand it using very fine sandpaper and reapply another coat if you wish.

Now what's a lovely cake tin without something yummy to put in it? 

What better way to honour the lovely ladies from 1930s New Zealand on the top of my tin than by using a recipe from the iconic NZ Edmonds Cookbook. 

This is the Edmonds Cookery Book Chocolate Coconut Brownie recipe that I've modified so that it's vegan and gluten free (so my son can enjoy it too!).

125g Dairy Free Margarine (sub butter for traditional recipe)
1 C Sugar
1/4 C Cocoa Powder
2 tsp "No Egg" plus 4 Tbsp water (sub 2 eggs)
1 tsp Vanilla essence
1/2 C Coconut
1/2 C Self raising GF flour (sub plain flour)
1 tsp Baking Powder

Melt margarine in a saucepan and add cocoa. Remove from the heat and add sugar then No Egg and water. Whisk it in so that there are no lumps. Add vanilla and coconut. Add flour and baking powder. Stir it all up and pour into a 20cm x 20cm slice tin that has been greased and lined.

Bake in 180 degree oven for 30 - 35 mins. Dust with icing sugar or coconut.

Enjoy!