Recycled fish-tin desk tidy.

I was about to put the dirty tin cans in our recycling box when I noticed five identical mackerel tins. Always a fan of 'direct' recycling, I came up with this handy storage unit for small components.

It took around five minutes to work out the best configuration, and another five minutes to make. I will now save you five minutes by showing you how to make the RECYCLED FISH-TIN DESK TIDY.

Step 1 Materials, tools and constructing the base level.

Take five empty mackerel tins. If mackerel is not your fish of choice, pilchard or sardine tins would be equally at home in this project. You will also need a way of sticking the tins together. A hot glue gun is the ideal weapon to use here.

Wash the tins out well. Wash them out VERY well. No-one likes a desk tidy which smells of fish.

Turn one of the tins upside-down and run a couple of lines of hot glue down one of the long sides. Hold the tins together until the glue cools. Don't hold too close to the glue - those tins are excellent heat conductors.

Comments

[KJS]

Very nice :) You don't by any chance have a smart way to make a lid, just for the top one in your construction?

[Cabbages and Kings]

The way to make a lid would be to open the tins with one of those openers that cuts sideways through the seam rather than pulling the tab or using a downward cutting opener. The side cutting type automatically create a lid as they cut. Look on the advertising / packaging - the manufacturers often use the 'lid' thing as a marketing point.

[Emsaid]

Hey i like this idea, Nice!

[Nikki213]

Lol, That's too cute!!

[darus67]

Cool. You could also remove the lids from Altoids tins and do something very similar.