With Spring finally here, my beer cans are blooming! This week, I made big funky flower pins out of beer cans. My original idea for this project was found in a craft book that Breen bought me recently. In that book were dragonflies made out of beer cans that were poking out of flower pots. I was all set to make those dragonflies but somehow I stumbled across “soda can flower pins” and they made me smile so much that I just had to make a few of those instead. I had a bag of empty beer cans that Breen’s nephews saved for me when we saw them on Easter.
These flowers were so incredibly easy to make. I would give you the step by step instructions here but I think the easiest thing to do is to GO OVER HERE where the steps are clearly laid out with photos. I can tell you that aluminum is super light weight and cuts easily with regular scissors. I had fun using the beads and wire which added great details to my flowers. I read reviews where some people were concerned about the flowers being sharp but I can assure you that I haven’t found it to be a problem at all. However, I did buy an awesome can of green tea from the Japanese store but realized that it was made from steel and way too hard to cut and I do think that the steel would have been VERY sharp. When I make more of these flower pins, I’m going to use aluminum cans only. There could be so many possibilities for these flowers using all sorts of colorful soda and beer cans with different color beads. Do you remember the Adirondack Alcohol Inks that I used on a previous tile project? Well those inks work on aluminum too. What a great and stylish way to recycle!
Here were the flowers before they became flowers:
Here’s a peek at what the flower looks like before the beads and wire were added:
Here they are happily pinned to my jean jacket:
Check out the detail of the “pistons” made out of the wire:
Don't forget to go over to The Painted House to see what I did this week for The Farmers Market and the Find. You won't be disappointed!
Also our dear fellow participant, Carrie over at Kablooey, is on vacation this week but is going to try to get her project posted. Go over here to check :)
What did you do this week?
~who would have ever thought!?! if only i knew of this long ago...many beer cans have been tossed into recycle can...when they could have been transformed into little cuties as these...Jane this is a wonderful project and i do think the possibilities are in fact endless...my mind is going a hundred now!! wonderful pins to welcome spring...well wishes and brightest blessings~
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, Faerwillow! Google "soda can projects" and I'll bet you find tons of great projects using recycled aluminum cans. I know I found quite a number of cool projects out there in cyber space....if only there were more days in the week!
ReplyDeleteoh my gosh! those are so neat! i've never seen anything like that before.
ReplyDeleteThese flowers are just wonderful - I tried something like it but used tins and they were much stiffer and didn't work as well - also the cauliflower looks delicious
ReplyDeleteros
Those flowers look great. I can't wait until we find some cans that are a bit more exotic. Bud only goes so far aesthetically.
ReplyDeleteOh, and my project is up. I guess everyone is waiting for me before they post theirs....
I echo faerwillow's comments exactly. And since I'm typing on my phone at god knows what cost, hope you don't mind. Best use of beer cans EVER.
ReplyDeleteLove them. I think we are in the same wavelength because the first part of my project was drawing prototypes for my craft swap, but instead of beer cans I am using felt so I love them. What a great idea!
ReplyDeleteHow completely intriguing and different, Jane. I love them!
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