Transforming Trash: How I Break Down Soda and Beer Cans For Crafting

hi my crafty friends welcome to the upcycled Design Lab if you're new here my name's Cindy and I craft using recycled and repurposed materials to give you ideas on ways to make and create more economically and ecologically and if you've seen any of my recent videos you know I've been doing a lot of projects using aluminum cans so I thought in this video I would show you how I break down my cans into four usable parts the tab the domed bottom the ring and a flat metal sheet I'm going to be breaking down this process into two phases the first step is just going to be tearing down the can and this makes it a lot easier for storage and it just takes up a lot less space and then the second phase will be preparing the pieces so they're more readily available to use for crafting projects you need a few tools for the first phase and you just need a pair of scissors I use a paring knife to start the cuts and then I have a couple of different tools here that are made by draft top their original can opener which I have used to take the tops off of hundreds of cans it is finally getting a little bit dull and I don't know if they're still making this version but they do have a new version called draft top lift and it is very fast it works uh pretty much the same way as the original and you need this tool in order to get the top of the can off so I'm going to go ahead and tear down this can through the first phase so I've gone ahead and rinsed out my can but there's always just a little bit of moisture left in them so I usually have a paper towel ready the first thing I do is just remove the tab and set it aside and then I'm going to use the draft top to take off the top of the can here if you'd like more information on how to use this tool check the description box for a video tutorial so once you're done you have the ring left on the top of the can and I usually just get rid of this piece I haven't found a use for it yet if you're interested I did make a video on three different ways to remove the top of the aluminum cans so you can check out that video if you're interested but if you're trying to use the ring portion of the can for any of your craft projects I really recommend using this tool to remove the top of the can so the next thing I do is just take my paring knife and start a cut to cut off the top of the can right right at the curve of the can and I usually just cut it far enough to get my scissors in because the scissors make a much cleaner cut foreign side of the can and cut off the bottom again with my scissors at this point if you have any really rough Burrs you probably want to trim them off but other than that that is pretty much the first phase of breaking down the can and once you have them in these pieces they're very stackable and they take up a lot less space so I have about 50 cans that I'm going to prep to this point and then we'll go ahead and we'll do phase two where we actually get them ready for crafting projects I do get asked sometimes about the sharp edges of the aluminum cans and typically the smooth edges can be sharp enough to give you a paper cut but I don't consider them to be terribly dangerous what you do want to be careful of is any Burrs or loose pieces of metal and if you do find those on any of the pieces you can go ahead and trim those off before you continue working with the aluminum you can also wear gloves if you feel safer doing that while you're working with the aluminum pieces like I said you might want to trim off the Burrs and just be a little bit careful when you're handling the metal pieces completes phase one and at this point you can just put the stuff away and store it and finish the process when you're ready to use the materials but I'll go ahead and show you phase two of how I prep these items when I'm actually ready to craft with them so the tabs are ready to go you just need to find a container to store them in until you're ready to use them the Rings are probably the most dangerous pieces to work with just because they end up with the most Burrs on them so you can trim those off if you want to before you do this next step but to get to the Rings all you need to do is cut up to the rim and you're going to cut slits about three quarters of an inch apart all the way around the can and once you've done that you're just going to bend the piece back and forth until it comes off of the Ring and then you can just throw away the extra aluminum and you've got your and you're left with the aluminum can ring now when you get all of the tabs off you are still often left with little pointed edges where the can didn't completely break off sometimes you can trim them off with your scissors uh I've also filed them down with different tools but what I like to do just to avoid the rough edges is oftentimes I will put two of my rings together and then I used some metal tape to cover up the inside and outside edge so that the sharp edges aren't exposed to get to the domed piece of the aluminum can you're going to want a pair of tin snips and I have this nice small scissor pair it's made by whis and I think you can find them at Home Depot for around ten dollars again I'm just going to cut some slits up to the bottom rim of the can about three quarters of an inch apart and then once that's done I'm going to use my tin snips to cut in the deepest ditch portion of the can and trim off the excess metal to flatten my aluminum pieces the first thing that I do is I go back just with the dull Edge you could use a Sharpie marker I just use the handle of my knife and I press down the edge where I cut the can with the knife because that seems to be the most Jagged and I want to flatten it out a little bit before I flatten the rest of the can now here again I did a video on three different ways to flatten aluminum cans and so you can I will put that reference in the description box as well I typically end up using the iron method but if you do have a lot of cans you might consider using the oven method I'm not going to demonstrate those methods here because I did a whole video tutorial that you can check out on how to actually flatten all of your cans I hope this information helps you prepare for your next aluminum can project be sure to check all the additional resources that are linked in the description box if you enjoyed today's video please give it a thumbs up if you haven't already I'd love to have you join my YouTube Family by clicking that subscribe button and you can also hit the Bell icon to select your notification preferences if you'd like to check out some of the things I've made using aluminum cans you can click the playlist below thanks so much for watching I hope to see you back here soon in the lab for my next experiment

Channel: Upcycle DesignLab

Views: 21,503

Keywords: upcycling re-purposing recycling tutorials how to's creative re-use crafting, Upcycling tutorial, Aluminum Can Crafts, Aluminum Can upcycling ideas, beer can crafts, Crafting with aluminum cans, Crafting with recycled beer and soda cans, Creative ways to reuse aluminum cans, Green crafting, recycling, Repurposing, soda can crafts, Soda can creations, Upcycled Crafts, upcycling, Upcycling Aluminum Cans, trash to treasure

Id: K4lfskYe5Ck

Length: 8min 24sec (504 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 22 2023