I'm looking for uses for empty soda cans and beer bottles. Specifically, I recall seeing a wall made of the bottoms of beer/wine bottles. I am amendable to any artsy, groovy use. Also, I would like to learn about crafty uses for used soda cans.
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If you have enough beer bottles that you can save the caps, you can cut squares of fabric and sew around each cap. It doesn't have to be pretty, the back of the cap isn't seen. Hot glue onto your favorite wreath style or make your own wreath from wood or cardboard. A great kids craft. My sister won a first place ribbon at the county fair when we were kids by making this wreath. (That was also when most sodas came in glass bottles. ha ha)
The tabs from aluminum cans can be taken off and collected for local dialysis centers. In many areas dialysis patients are given a discount for so many tabs.
Maybe you could recreate the license plate purses using soda cans, only making them smaller for dinner purses.
You could glue a row of soda cans together and fill with sand and use as a decorative door stop, book end, etc. Seal the top with an apoxy type glue.
Lighted Christmas Tree
225 Aluminum cans
225 Christmas Tree Lights
Scissors
Ice Pick
Large Phillips head screwdriver
Metal Glue
Wire
2 Lawn stakes (5')
Remove the tops from 225 aluminum cans. Trim the cans to 2" from the paint line. Using the ice pick, poke a hole in the center of each can bottom. Use the Phillips head screwdriver to enlarge the hole to fit a small Christmas tree light.
Glue the cans in 30 rows with the following number of cans in each row: 1,2,3,4,5,6,3,4,5,6,7,8,5,6,7,8,9,10,7,8,9,10,11,12,9,10,11,12,13 and 14. Push a Christmas tree light through the hole in the bottom of each can. Prop the tree against two 5' lawn stakes and secure with wire.
Think of these products as raw materials to use in creative ways. Soda bottles have a curve to them so you would have to work with it but soda cans can be thought of as sheets of aluminum to be bent and shaped to your will.
2 liter soda bottles
*put together and make a bag holder - mine is next to the trash can
*make a watering system for your plants
*cheap food storage containers - I store sugar, flour, beans, pasta, biscuit mix because of the bugs
soda cans
*I save the tabs of these cans and other food pull tabs to sell on etsy.com
*jewelry -- flickr
*ashtray
*recycle for cash
*create picture frames
*wind chimes
*light catching tree - once saw a sculpture of a tree and they used soda cans as the leaves, only one side of the leaf was painted - these were attached so that when the wind blew the "leaves" the sun would reflect off of the unpainted aluminum
glass bottles
++ 2 pieces of equipment is needed to work with glass - glass cutter and a rock tumbler
*jewelry after rock tumbler worked its magic
*set of drinking glasses
*mosaic tile work after bottle have been broken
*pebbled rocks after rock tumbler worked its magic
*trivet - cut off the curled lip (making a circle of glass) and glue together side by side
*tray - someone melted down a wine bottle so that it could be flattened and made a serving tray
*vase - typical
*candle holders on the cheap
scrolling on flickr (recycle, soda bottle, cans) gives great ideas. Someone even make a series of sculpture of great looking underwear out of aluminum cans!
you could fill the glass bottles most of the way with sand, then stick a candle in the mouth. you may want to pour a little bit of melted wax in right before you put in the taper candle so that it sticks well.
My alcoholic uncle made a table and two chairs using beer cans and boxes for me when I was younger. They were very sturdy and I was impressed. He also had a beer bottle headboard.
Seems BeckyTN has posted the exact instruction for the Lighted Christmas Tree off the Aluminous Publishing website.
What is a good glue for gluing Aluminum cans?
For bottles, you might want to visit...
Jackie Stack Lagakos:
http://www.bottlestructures.com
Edourd Arsenault:
www3.sympatico.ca/
Rhyolite Bottle Building:
http://www.legendsofamerica.com
Tressa Prisbrey's Bottle Village:
echomatic.home.mindspring.com/
I made one of the most fuel efficient camp stoves out of 2 Dr Pepper cans. It burns Denatured Alchohol, and fits in the palm of my hand. Great for hiking! My favorite drinking glass is made from a Sapporo Japanese beer can with the top removed. It is very sturdy as the can is made of steel. One of the Kemton brothers of the Airheads Beemer Club makes the coolest tall glasses from old beer bottles.
Regarding Tawnda's post above, Aluminum can tabs being redeemed for dialysis or wheelchairs or anything else is a very old urban legend. It's not true. See here for details:
www.snopes.com/business/redeem/pulltabs.asp
Don't waste your time or good intentions saving them.
These tabs CAN be used for many different charities. The Ronald McDonald House in Indianapolis uses them by recycling the donated tabs and using the profits to offset costs of housing parents and families of children receiving services at Riley Children's Hospital. The fee for the familes is $10 a night or less because of the many people who donate these tabs. Myself included.
Speaking of the glass bottle wall, I once saw a picture of a shed that had a wall made of adobe-like material with bottles placed in it, surrounded by the adobe, so that the upper halves and necks faced the outside of the building and the bottoms were flush with the interior of the wall. Not only did this allow light to filter into the shed in interesting colors and patterns, but the wall made a hauntingly lovely sound when the wind blew past the bottlenecks. I've been intrigued with the idea ever since I heard if that.
Reality Check Posted:
Regarding Tawnda's post above, Aluminum can tabs being redeemed for dialysis or wheelchairs or anything else is a very old urban legend. It's not true. See here for details:
www.snopes.com/business/redeem/pulltabs.asp
Don't waste your time or good intentions saving them.
Although that article states that the tabs cannot be used to "buy time for dialysis patients" they can be collected for charities!!
I'm saving my wine bottles to bury and make an edging for my garden! I don't save the ones that have inverted bottoms so they wont collect water for mosquitoes. I guess I'll need a post hole digger!
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