Tenth Wedding Anniversary Gift Idea

It was our neighbours' wedding anniversary yesterday and I wanted to give them something that fitted in with the traditional idea of what should be given at each anniversary.  Looking it up, the tenth anniversary is meant to be celebrated with tin, which initially did not enthuse me one jot.

Did you know that if you reach your 90th (yes, 90th!) wedding anniversary, the gift is meant to be stone?  So you marry when barely out of nappies, learn to live with someone else and all their foibles for far in excess of three score years and ten, survive to past a century, and all you get for your anniversary is a blummin' stone?  I ask you!

Anyway, back to the problem in hand.  Although I have spent a good amount of time on Pinterest recently (research, research, my dears!) I had still failed to come up with a idea.  But then I pondered my love of pretty tins, and thought maybe I could do something with tins.  

Here's what I did.  

First I bought some lovely tins - a set of three nesting ones that weren't too big.  I was going to put stuff inside them, and I didn't want to have too much space to fill, and I wanted them clean, rather than vintage and rusty.  I chose this set from 'Katie Alice'.  It's called Scarlet Posy and I got mine from a local garden centre.

Once washed and thoroughly dried, I layered up some sweet inside the smallest one - Flying Saucers and Dolly Mixtures first...

...then Love Hearts on top.

The smallest tin was then nested inside the medium one, and the space filled with more sugary treats - lollipops and more saucers...

The process was repeated - Chocoalte Eclairs and Wine Gums this time...

...then it was all topped off with a pair of chocolate hearts, onto which I had, without the benefit of my glasses, put a message...

The final lid was put on...

And the sleeve slipped back on, so it just looks like a set of tins.

If I'd thought about the sweets before buying in a mad frenzy inside Mr Simms Olde Sweet Shoppe, I'd have made sure my choices were all 'clever' ones.  So Flying Saucers because all marriages benefit from a bit of fizz; lollies because an extra bit of lolly never goes amiss; Jelly Babies for their two children; gobstoppers, for when someone needs encouragement to cease talking; oh, you get the idea. 

Hope they'll like it when they get back from gallivanting round Florence!