I first heard about Altoid wallets a year ago or so – or rather, heard the term and then conducted my own online research and learned that yes, they’re pretty much exactly what they sound like. There’s something almost freeing about leaving the house with just a tin somewhat smaller than 2.5″ x 4″ containing all the essentials: a debit card, lip balm, hair tie, a few dollars in cash, and maybe even wireless earbuds if that’s how you roll…but I knew that would never work for me. I want an actual bag to hold my actual wallet, not to mention the sunglasses case, phone, reusable bag or two, and emergency rations in the form of leftover fun-size Halloween chocolate. (And occasionally, incoming/outgoing mail or a library book.) I dismissed the idea as “cute” and promptly forgot about it.
A month or two ago, Pinterest started showing me images of little mini beauty kits in an Altoids tin. Their creators managed to cram all this soft-girl aesthetic into a very small space, with strands of tiny faux pearls outlining teeny-tiny mirrors and little pink bows in the same shade as the lip stain tucked into the bottom. And thanks to the site algorithms, I also started seeing more pragmatic versions, like little tiny emergency kits.
I should make one for my mom, I thought, clearly a victim of social media saturation. Only…a beauty kit to go isn’t quite her speed (did you even know you can buy Altoid-sized mascara?), and a full-out “In Case of Emergency, Open Tin” scenario didn’t feel very gift-y somehow. I decided to hit somewhere between those two extremes, and decided on a cute tin with some purse essentials in it.
The theme came together in about five minutes for me when, in a fit of boredom, I googled “cat in boy scout uniform”. Google happily obliged with several images that I’m sure were AI-generated; one of them was captioned “Be Purr-pared”.
Yes! Be purr-pared, indeed! With the help of some musical inspiration, I was on my way.
I found some images from a vintage Girl Scouts manual on Etsy, and had my aesthetic.
And filled with lip balm, hand cream, Band-Aids, and gum for those post-coffee emergencies.
There was a good amount of Mod Podge involved, and it was impossible to perfectly line up the plaid on the short edges, but overall I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.
Thanks for looking! 🙂
The Witty Child 