Outdoor Crafts For Recycling Aluminum Cans

Plant Pots

• The cylindrical shape of cans lends itself extremely well to use as plant pots. Holes punched in the bottom of the cans provide drainage, and holes in the side create built-in hangers for displaying the can pots along a fence or on a post. Paint, contact paper or decoupage decorate the cans, and provide a variety of looks from shabby chic to elegant.

Lanterns

• The cylindrical shape of cans also lends itself well to outdoor lantern design. Aluminum can lantern designs range in style from ultra-lightweight, utilitarian camping lanterns to more traditional lanterns with delicate pinprick patterns. Both soda cans and thicker vegetable or soup cans work well as lanterns and yield an endless variety of designs.

Garden Ornaments

• The thin metal of aluminum soda cans, as well as their bright outer colors, offers a flexible sculpting medium for producing creative garden ornaments. Flowers, butterflies, insects and more -- the possibilities are limited only by the imagination of the sculptor. The softness and pliability of this metal make it easy to cut, bend and fasten together to create intricate shapes.

Wind Chimes

• The thicker metal of vegetable or soup cans, although slightly more difficult to cut than soda cans, can yield equally imaginative wind chime designs. Altering the shape or adding cutouts changes the resonant quality of the musical notes produced. Because most modern cans are aluminum instead of tin, rust will not mar the surface or affect the tone of the chimes over time.