Don't Toss Those Tea Tins — Repurpose Them Into Beautiful Herb Planters

Whether you're an avid tea drinker or you've been given fancy tea as a thoughtful gift, decorative tea tins can be reused in unexpected ways. Their size and shape make it hard to imagine they can be repurposed to hold anything other than tea, but as it turns out, there is an excellent alternative — especially if you're on the hunt for new planters for your indoor herb garden.

It's not as simple as dropping some soil and a plant into these tins, but it's pretty close. With a few easy tweaks, these cute tins can be converted into containers for your windowsill herb garden, making it an excellent DIY project to tackle in a day. 

As the very first step, empty and clean your tea tin, and then dry it thoroughly. This is particularly important if it was storing loose-leaf tea. From there, all you need is super glue, plastic lining, and foam balls or another option to help create proper drainage, and in a few easy steps, you'll have the start of a charming indoor herb garden. 

In just a few simple steps, this video from HGTV shows how straightforward the process can be.

First, line the top edge of the tin with super glue, which will help keep your plastic lining in place. In the video, they recommend using a gallon-sized storage bag and pressing it into place, leaving it to set until it's dry before trimming any excess plastic that's higher than the lip of the tin.

Next, add foam balls to the bottom of the plastic-lined tin for drainage, and cover with your potting mix — leaving enough room, of course, for your plant. Place the plant inside your new planter, and as a next step, the video suggests taking washi tape to create a cute label for your plant in question.

In the video, the creator also adds heavy-duty adhesive magnets to the planter so they can hang their planters on a metal surface, but we think these would look just as cute lined on a windowsill or set out on a sunlit side table.

As an alternative, if you don't have any tea tins on hand, you can do the same project with a one-gallon olive oil tin, following the same steps.