Fishy Business: How We Reeled in Sardine-Tastic Centerpieces for ‘Noises Off’ Opening Night!

CATCH OF THE DAY: SARDINE CENTERPIECES

Hand Crafted by #TableSettingIsMyLife 

We took great amusement in designing and producing these boisterous sardine tins for the opening night performance of Noises Off at Two River Theater. If you're unfamiliar with the show, click here for a little sneak peak. If you've seen Noises Off, then you know... they talk about sardines ~ a lot.

Here is a backstage look at how #TableSettingIsMyLife crafted these fishy centerpieces.

First the fish... 

Find or create a simple but fun sardine drawing, then print, cut, and glue the fish to a thin foam board. We had some old remnant pieces laying around from a previous project... remember when you can: reduce, reuse, recycle!

1 Fish 2 Fish Blue Fish Blue Fish... 

20 centerpieces = 100 fish = a lot of cutting. 

The tins we used are 8.5 by 5.3 storage containers purchased from Amazon. 

Hot glue a few pieces of that foam board along the sides to create a lip for the first layer of paper to attached to. 

 

That paper behind our fishy friends is from the DCWV wedding paper stack. Another left over from a previous project just happened to be a perfect fit! This is why you can't throw anything away (sigh). 

Trace the tin on the backside of the fancy paper and cut to shape.

Not gonna lie: it was a surprising challenge to perfectly fit the paper along the edges of the tin. Solution: cover any gaps with white ribbon cording. Love concealing our messes and mistakes, they become little secrets only you know (until you write a blog about it).

The tin cover is made up of a few pieces. Using part of the TRT show art, we designed a Two River Canning Co.Sardine label, printed it on card stock paper then glued it to the back of silver kraft wrapping paper (another Amazon purchase). 

Note: To ensure the paper fits nicely on the tin, trace the outline of the container onto the back side of the card stock first. 

Following the natural curl of the wrapping paper, roll the pieces down at a slight angle and hot glue the curl to the paper. Attach label to tin wit hot glue.

It took crafting a few sardine centerpieces to realize it was better to apply the hot glue to the paper and not the metal container. Hot glue drys really quickly on metal (Science!). 

You could stop here - but why would you?

We used floral wiring purchased from Michaels, Ashland decorative aluminum wire to be exact, to make the tin can turn key. Cut 5 or 6 inches of wire, then bend and work until you get the right turn key shape. 

Originally, the plan was to make it double sided but once the containers arrived we realized there was no real depth to the back for the fish. So last minute solution: shrug it off and use the show art cut from the playbill, glue it to the back. Brilliant! 

To stabilize the centerpiece, we attached it to white box tops and used a few extra fish to decorate the backside. 

Annnnnd done! 

   

To see our centerpieces in action check out this great article on the event from Red Bank Pulse!

To check out these fish in action, dive into the Noises Off Opening Night post. 

Click here for more photos. 

For more on the opening night reception, check out this video from Red Bank Pulse, or click the link to view more photos of the the event.

Noises Off will be playing though Feb 3 at Two River Theater in Red Bank, NJ. For more information about the show, visit the TRT website.