Making a Jewellery Tube

An empty Pringles tube was floating around the house during the school holidays. I kept putting off throwing it in the rubbish as I kept thinking what a nice strong container it was. I also loved its shape. But I could not think of anything to do with it. Then someone shared a picture on Pinterest and it sparked this idea for jewellery tube to keep all those lovely things of yours in. My niece, who is 4, believes I should keep sweets in it. Not a bad idea either, especially if you are looking for a nice way to present something sweet to a loved one on Valentine's Day.

You will need one empty tube of Pringles (or any brand you like that comes in a tube).

Saw the ends off the tube. You can also use a sharo crafter's knife to do this.

On the fold, where the label running around the tube meets up, cut the tube open. The reason I use this line is that it makes it easier to cut a straight line.

Line a metal ruler up with the writing at the back of the tube. The writing is already aligned, making it easy to see when your ruler has gone skew.

Score a folding line in the tube with an embossing tool.

Fold the tube open on the fold line. I use a ruler to guide the fold.

Find some strong and sturdy cardboard (mine is from the packaging of a cookie box). Use the lid to cut two circles for the ends.

Paint the outside of the tube and both sides of both circles with gesso.

You will know your own colour palette best, but mine made is of earth tones. As a result, I painted the tube, and both sides of the circles in Burnt Umber Acrylic Paint. The only reason I painted the tube was to make sure that none of the writing would show through the paper. Judge for yourself if it is necessary for you to do so. You still have to paint at least one side of the circles.

I now needed to work out the circumference of the tube. This is easy to do if you have the radius of the lid. The formula for the circumference of a circle is 2 x pie x radius. In this case the circumference is 22 cm. I add 2 cm to this. The height of the tube is 20 cm. I again add 2 cm. I then cut a piece of craft paper to measure 24 cm x 22 cm.

I cut two circles from the craft paper for the ends of the tube.

Making sure that the paint has dried, I paint Acrylic Gel Medium on the craft paper, doing a piece at a time.

I then stick them down on the cardboard circles. The Acrylic Gel Medium serves as an adhesive.

When covering the tube, make sure that the paper goes smoothly into the fold and that the tube can still open and close once the paper is stuck on.

Put glue on the overhangs on the long ends and fold them over to stick them down, finishing these ends neatly. Cut small snips in the rounded ends' overhangs.

Glue these overhangs with a craft glue.

Fold these ends over to finish it neatly.

Now paint Acrylic Gel Medium on the pasted down paper to complete the decoupage process and to serve as a protective barrier for the paper.

I put some muscle to a punch and punch out flowers from the same cardboard I cut the circles from earlier.

I then punch similar sized flowers from coordinating craft paper.

I punch some more flowers from a combination of the two papers using a selection of floral punches.

I do the same with a butterfly punch.

All of my punched-out shapes are given a layer of Acrylic Gel Medium to strengthen them.

I decoupage the paper flowers to the cardboard flowers. I also find some fabric flowers removed from old curtains years ago. To this I add some split pins and an awl to punch holes.

I layer the collection on top of the end circles and use the awl to punc a hole through all of the layers.

I use the split pins to secure the layers in place.

I gather the remaining punched flowers and another fabric flower.

These are all layered on top of each other. The split pin is put in, but the legs are not split yet. We'll do that a little later on when we secure the flower to the tube.

I put craft glue on half the circumference of the tube (excluding the lid), and then carefully position the end circles on the glue. Patiently wait for the glue to dry to prevent the sides coming off while you decorate the tube.

Lay a thin strip of glue down just below the opening of the tube.

Stick a length of ribbon down on the glue and use washing pegs to keep it in place while it dries.

I added a second length of ribbon as well.

I then made a line of glue just above the opening on the lid.

I cut a loop out of chord to serve as 'buttonhole'. This was laid in place with yet another length of ribbon on top of it.

Another line of glue kept a string of fake pearls in place just below the lace,

I added some more washing pins to keep the lace and ribbon in place while drying. This prevents you from seeing that I added a small split pin to the buttonhole chord to secure it more firmly to the lid.

I used the awl to punch a hole in the lid where I wanted my remaining flower to go.

The flower was secured to the lid with a split pin.

I added yet another fabric flower, securing it with a split pin as well. Here you can see me punching the hole through the flower and lid.

I hooked a button onto the chord so that I could mark the exact spot where the button should be secured.

I then cut a small cross into the tube where I could push the stem of the button through.

Here you can see the stem of the button inside the tube. If your button has a 'normal' stem, you can secure it in place with a sewing pin or a broken toothpick, depending on the thickness of the stem.

I very carefully cut two double-sided 3D foam squares in half with a craft knife.

Three of these halves were placed on top of the punched-out butterflies.

The remaining three butterflies were pasted onto the bottom ones.

The butterflies were then glued to the tube.

I then find an embellishment that can serve as a focal point and lather some glue to this as well.

The final touch is added to the tube!

It is a little difficult to capture the full grandeur of the tube in one shot, so I turned it on its back to start with.

Gorgeous! And to think this used to be an empty Pringles tube ...

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