Recycling 2lb Coffee Cans

What could you do with a 2 lb coffee can? That is besides just throw it in the dumpster!  After removing the labels to where you have just silver can you try doing some of the following:

1.  Make an outdoor patio candle: Poke holes about ½ down from the top rim.  Affix a hanger to the top rim by punching two holes, inserting a wire hanger (a wire coat hanger works great, use the hook to hang from a nail)
Then fill the bottom part of the can with candle wax and a wick. Add citronella if you want to deter bugs.

2. Make a hanging lamp: Paint the can to complement your décor. Cut out a medium sized hole in the bottom of the can to where you can slip through a light making kit cord. Use the cord from the lamp kit to loop through hooks in your ceiling to hang the lamp or you could use ribbon, twisted twine, or macramé.

3. Make a can up light:  Paint can whatever color you want. Make a hole in the bottom of the can large enough to put the cord of a lamp making kit through. Glue 3-4 felt furniture protector dots to the bottom of the can to lift it up from the floor a little bit so that the can will not rock or glue on some little wooden “feet.” Insert a 40-watt light bulb and place near a tree in the corner of your room to shine interesting patterns on the wall.

4. A towel tower: This will require at least 10 coffee cans. , a board the width of four coffee cans wide and some glue made to stick metal surfaces together.
Use small nails to nail four cans to the board, side-by-side, and edges touching one another. The next row will be three cans, centered over the four cans. Glue the sides of these cans together and then glue them t the bottom cans. Repeat this process with two additional cans for the next row and then one can on top. When finished, spray paint the unit inside and out. Place on top of you toilet tank and put rolled towels and wash cloths in it.

5. Make planter pots: Use them as planters for your garden plants. Poke holes in the bottom, add some crushed rock or pieces of old clay pots, dump in planting soil, add your seeds and have a nice container. You could even paint the outside if you wanted to.

6. Hardware storage:  Do you have many home repair items lying around, like screws, nuts, bolts, nails, etc. that end up in the bottom of a toolbox or in a drawer somewhere? They work great to store these types of “handyman” items. Write the contents either on the outside of the can or on the plastic lid.

7. Camping trips: You can store things from food items to paper goods in them to keep animals out of foodstuffs and moisture out of paper goods.

8. Knitting canister: punch a hole in the lid, insert your skein of yarn and you will not have to worry about tangles ever again.

9. Kids toy storage: Do they have blocks, small cars, army men, etc that are always getting lost? For all those little items that kids love to scatter about that end up in the bottom of the toy box and they never can find.

10. Cat Food or Dog Food: traveling with your four footed friends and do not want to carry along a bag of food that can be ripped our tipped over and have food all over your car? Throw their food into a coffee can for easy and convenient feeding.

These are my ideas now what are yours?  I would love to hear how you would recycle your coffee cans.