I have been saving these McCann’s Steel Cut Irish Oatmeal tins for a while now with no ideas… they’ve been sitting above my oven – where they had looked sort of strange as they were without any purpose. The truth is that because of the way my oven’s cord sits in this older home (in need of a kitchen refinish) there is a space between the oven and the wall that is a bit larger than I like… and I don’t want things to be put up there to fall behind the oven. So, these tins were an excellent reminder for me. I also was trying to add a specific Feng Shui element to enhance the area… and one night before going to bed I took all of five minutes to paint these with chalkboard paint and a sponge brush and looked at them the next morning wondering what to do next, since I didn’t like the look of them!
Not feeling very creative, and being one of those people that won’t finish something because it’s not perfect, I decided to change that and grabbed a piece of chalk. I do have chalk paint, but wasn’t ready to commit… so I grabbed a piece of plain chalk and wrote the first things that cam to mind – fitting for a kitchen… and this is what I came up with:
I didn’t clean off any edges at this point… and I still have some design work to do… I would like to refine the lettering (it’s my natural handwriting – and written very quickly)… clean up the edging and probably pain some edging details.
The Feng Shui element is that these are metal painted charcoal (almost black) above a freestanding stovetop/oven range. The mouth of the stove faces South East… and the kitchen sits in the northeast bagua (traditional)… so even though the objects are metal and painted charcoal… I have given them some intentional fire sustaining elements… the woodsy-looking branches (wood) and the charcoal paint itself… which can sustain a fire. so much of Feng Shui is intuition and intention.
Once I refine my work, I am going to post an update.
The reality is that McCann’s Steel Cut Irish Oatmeal tins are amazing. They are wonderful storage for someone who grows a lot of their own herbs, teas, and spices… or for someone who simply buys them in bulk.
But I am so happy to have done *something* with these, finally… no… they remain unfinished but really (besides that I need to clean up some sloppy edging) I don’t think many would notice that!
I hope this helps to inspire someone else who doesn’t know what to do with these!
Be inspiring!
~Phyllis Ida Concordia
Inner Bitchins 