Save good tin boxes and cookie tins, because there are many things you can make with them. Some of these things you can use yourself, and others make nice presents for birthdays and Christmas.

Tin cigarette boxes can be made into pretty boxes to hold pins and needles, paper clips, or thumb tacks. Give them a coat of bright enamel paint and paste a picture on the top of each cover.

A tall cookie tin makes a very useful knitting needle holder. You do not need the cover. Prick a hole on each side of the top-for a handle. Paint the tin with enamel paint, and decorate-by painting a design on the side, paste one on, or make sealing wax flowers to trim the top and bottom edges. Tie a ribbon through the top holes, to make a handle, and you have a convenient holder to give someone who knits.

A lantern can be made from an ordinary tin can, by taking off both the top and bottom, making a hole in one side to hold a candle, and running a wire through it for a handle.

Aspirin boxes can be painted with enamel paint, and used to hold stamps. Paste a stamp on the top of the cover-to show what the box holds.

Fancy Dishes To Make

In the summertime when we use so many paper plates, it is fun to decorate some of them.-You might do it in the winter, too, and give the family a surprise for their next Sunday night supper. It is a good rainy day occupation.

All you need is crayons, or water colors, colored paper, paste, and a small bottle of white shellac. You will probably have all these things in the house except perhaps the shellac, and a ten cent bottle from the dime store will be enough for several plates.

Perhaps you can draw a nice picture on the plate, or color a flower border. Figures cut from leftover wallpaper may be used. Another way to decorate a plate is to cut a colored sailboat and paste it in the center. (The illustration will show you how easy it is to make.) Make one sail blue, and the other red. The boat might be black.

When your decorating is done, cover the whole top of the plate with your shellac-painting it on with a brush. (Do not be afraid to use your good brush, as it can be cleaned with hot water and soap flakes.) This will make the plate waterproof, as well as shiny.

Things To Make With Clothespins

Santa claus place cards can be made from clothespins. First paint the sticks of the clothespins red-leaving the top of the pin and a free space just under the top, for a face. Draw the eyes in ink. Then paint a red nose and mouth, and a round red spot on each cheek. When the pin is dry, paste cotton around the face and on the back of the head-for hair and whiskers. Add pipe cleaner arms by slipping a pipe cleaner between the sticks. Then by slipping the doll over a folded strip of cardboard-bending one end of the paper forward, and the other back, the doll will stand by itself.

Draw a picture of a parrot-copy this, but make it larger. Then make another parrot exactly like the first. Color them, and paste the two birds together-leaving a small space free in the middle of the body, so the top of a clothespin can be slipped between the two pieces. (A doll clothespin is better than a big one, but either will do.) With the clothespin, the bird can be made to perch on a lamp shade, or the top of a vase.