Do you have empty food storage cans laying around? If you’re like us, you use food that has been canned in #10 cans. These are the standard bulk food storage cans–approximately 6 1/8″ across and 7″ high. And once they’re opened, they can’t be resealed like a bucket can, so you end up with this:
A bunch of empty #10 cans. It seems a shame to throw away such a sturdy little can, but what can you do with all those empty food storage cans? Well, today we’re going to give you a bunch of ideas–some from my sweet facebook followers, so if you recognize some of these ideas, you may have been the one to suggest it. ;)
And so, without further ado, here is the totally non-comprehensive list of things you can do with empty number 10 cans.
1. Store stuff in them in your garage/shop/shed/etc. They are handy in the shop for holding nuts and bolts and nails and washers and random odds and ends. Also good for catching oil and other nastiness and holding lacquer thinner etc. for cleaning parts.
2. Store more stuff in them in your kitchen. They are handy in the house for storing kitchen foods like spices and mix packets. Also for holding a reasonable amount of foods that you may have stored in buckets in your food storage room and just need a little bit of in your kitchen. Like sugar or flour or oatmeal.
3. Store even more stuff in them in your house. There is more to the list than storing things in the cans, I promise! They’re just so useful for storing things I had to stretch it out over 3 numbers. Use them for art supplies like crayons and markers. Or decorate them up cute by hot glue-ing towels or fabric plus some trim/flowers/ribbon/etc. and use them as bathroom caddies for your cotton balls and whatnots. Additionally, if they’re really cute, they can be entered in your county fair exhibits and earn ribbons like these.
4. Use them for target practice. See, I told you there was more to this list than storing stuff! And if you’re real accurate, you can use the same can for #5.
5. Make some large Tin Can Luminaries. You don’t have to fill them with ice before punching the holes like the instructions say, but it does help the can hold its shape. Very cool for holidays like Halloween (out with the jack-o-lanterns) or Christmas.
6. Make some tin can stilts. Turn the empty can upside down and punch two holes opposite each other near what used to be the bottom. String a string (baling twine works great) through the holes and tie it so you’ve got something to hold on to. Like these only bigger. And you can paint them cute or just leave them silver. They work the same either way.
http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/can-do-stilts-674266
Or skip the string and just duct tape the cans to your shoes. Really?
7. Punch a couple of drain holes in the bottom and use them for container gardening. Again, you can paint them and make them look quite nice if you’re feeling crafty or just leave them.
8. Use them with some boards to make shelves. Yep, these are painted cute–they are holding up the display shelves at our county fair. But you don’t have to get cute. We had a bookcase made with #10 cans and boards in our kitchen when I was growing up. I’m pretty sure those cans were full, though. (And check out the blue and zebra print bathroom caddies at the left in this picture as well.)
9. Cover the open top with tight fabric or leather secured with a rubber band (or just use the plastic lid that came with the can), add a couple of dowels with wooden beads on the ends and you have a drum. This could be decorated cute and used for a Christmas decoration or as a gift for a musically inclined child. Preferably one not living in your home. ;)
10. Make a “Mr. Potato Head” type guy with magnetic pieces. Cut face parts from craft foam or felt and attach sticky magnets (found in a roll in the craft section of the store) to the pieces. Store all the face parts in the can with the plastic lid on. We made one of these for a road trip when our kids were little. Lots of fun. We had face parts floating around the house stuck to anything metal for quite a few years after that. I’m pretty sure they’re all gone now, but it was a fun little diversion for them on the trip.
11. What? You guys aren’t feeling that crafty? Okay–Here’s a practical one: Save a couple soup cans to go with your #10 can and make a rocket stove. Get a few cans and make stoves with your friends or scout troop.
12. And another not so practical one. Make a puppet on a stick like this guy. His head is stuffed, but his body is just hanging fabric. Punch/drill a hole slightly larger than the diameter of your stick in the bottom of an empty can and he can pop in and out of the can. Hours of entertainment for little folks. This guy actually had a friend and they shared a can–they were the Two Monsters in a Can. I would demonstrate the two monsters in a can for you, however, since my kids have had access to the puppets for many years, the friend is no longer with us and their can went with him. Maybe I’ll make this guy a home of his own out of another can. I have plenty and he’s homeless . . . Kind of looks sad about the whole situation.
13. Use them for a feed scoop. We do plenty of chicken feeding with the empty cans around here.
14. Use them for rehydrating just-add-water foods away from home. We used this one to mix up our potato flakes on a recent camping trip. Boil the water in another container, and just use the can for mixing and soaking. As a bonus, the can served as the container for all the dry foods we were using for that night’s dinner–super handy!
15. Make a food dehydrator. You’ll need a few more parts than just cans for this crazy contraption, but apparently it works!
16. Store more stuff in them. I know you have more stuff. ;)
Okay, that wasn’t 101 ideas, but 16 is a pretty good start. Maybe together we can get to 101. How about you? What do you do with your empty food storage cans?
Use them for ‘safe’ storage in my pantry – I label the lid with contents for other food stores, so valuables get labeled with food stuff too – things we don’t eat like lentils, dried black beans (I use canned), no one’s the wiser – till now of course.
Make a bucket – two holes punched near the top rim opposite each other, insert a wire handle from a coat hanger or leather thong, etc
A child’s seat – cover the lid with foam and material, cap the can, a seat
flower pots! 8-)
bathroom trashcans!! 8-)
Using large washers for bottom stability, screw thru the bottoms onto a 2×6 or thick plywood board. Nail board to the garage wall for sideways opening storage… Cleaning rags, towels, chamios cloths, gloves, mittens, hats, cans of spray paint, bottles of wine, small sacks of dog food, things in ziplock bags, paint brushes and rollers, sneakers, etc, anything you want up off the garage floor so that the dog or mice don’t get into them.
Roofing shingles… Cut bottom off. Cut open near seam. Pound flat. Use as roofing shingles on a shed.
Roof for a bird house :) Flatten as above, but then put a “V” into it for the birdhouse roof.
Cut bottom out and place deep into the ground around invasive plants like mints to keep them from spreading.
With bottom in them, turn upside down. Use as temporary heating units over small tender plants.
When I was a young mother in the 70′s we took large cans, put one in the center and grouped others around it like petals on a daisy. We put them upside down, covered the solid “bottoms” with batting or foam, and covered the whole thing in fabric. They made very cute ottomans or children’s stools.
I especially love the luminaries since I love to entertain and just refuse to buy anything to hold candles. Enough of these in my yard would serve my purpose at night–mood lighting, not something to read by.I have lots of spray paint.
Great Ideas and I got a laugh out of the puppet …very creative and fun. Only thing we ever used them for was Scout Troop stoves. Love all the reader ideas too…thank you !!!
Love all these ideas! The tin can stilts (or romper stompers as I remember them being called) take me back to being a kid and playing with my friends, we’d make these to play with all the time. We could really get a lot of racket going in my parents driveway.
We’ve boiled water in a dozen or so at a time on the woodstove then set them on the ice off the front step. They leave an odd design in the ice but create traction without killing the lawn like salt does.
Similiar in style to your tin can stoves, I have used them to make ice cream on a Girl Scout camping trip. Ingrecients went inside a smaller can with a lid in the middle; rock salt and ice went in between the cans. We put a lis on and then we rolled them back and forth until the cream, sugar, and vanilla inside was ice cream!
I had to giggle at #3; we go through 4 cups of oatmeal in a morning, and we eat oatmeal 3-4 days a week at my house. I just buy 25 pound bags of oats and we keep them in a 6 gallon bucket with a gamma lid (the opened ones) that we get into every day. I have a few things in #10 cans, but my big stuff is in buckets.
I’d love to be added to your blogroll for food storage sites! We’ve been living on our food storage and garden for several years now.
When making freezer meals-especially liquid things like soup-the cans are perfect for standing up gallon-sized ziploc bags in to fill before freezing. No more spilled soup all over the counter!
really good idea!
for measuring feed for the chickens, horses and dogs.
Just FYI, most of these cans have BPA in them…
Best to do good research before “going off the deep end” about BPA. Top Government Scientists Catch Media’s Favorite Anti BPA Researcher in Absurd Claims, Ties To Trial Lawyers. And here: ‘Majestically Scientific’ Federal Study On BPA Has Stunning Findings: So Why Is The Media Ignoring It?
RE: LORIE There always has to be a party pooper.
I bought a bunch of old rolls of wall paper borders and cut them into strips and glue them to the cans. Be sure to make the strips an inch longer so you can overlap the ends where they meet. I bought white plastic lids at L.D.S cannery that fit the #10 cans. The covered cans look great on the shelves in my craft/sewing room and hold oddles of supplies.
Angela and Everyone else,
Thanks for all the tips for using left over #10 cans. Y’all have some great ideas, and I’d like to share some that I know about.
To take marci357′s idea to the other end of the house. Me and my family were out west exploring old ghost towns, and we saw some folks that had used their old tin cans to cover knot holes that had fallen out to keep mice out of the house.
In Nuclear War Survival Skills, Mr. Kearny describes a method of making an Improvised Grain Mill out of three pieces of metal pipe and a #10 can resting on a piece of concrete.
Link:
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine – Nuclear War Survival Skills, Chapter 9: Food
Expedient Processing of Grains and Soybeans
http://www.oism.org/nwss/s73p920.htm
Scouts and their parents will know about using a tin can with a plastic lid for holding the toilet paper out by the out house ; – )
I keep an empty food storage can with a plastic lid in our car kits. The can holds eight votive candles with some matches. Place a candle in the can and light with the matches. A single candle will provide some heat and light. Plus, the candle lights up your position, so your rescuers might be able to see you at night. Needless to say, make sure you practice fire safety with a lighted candle.
Thanks again!
Great article. I don’t have near the imagination it takes to do things like this. Glad you are around!
I’ve always used cans as biscuit and cookie cutters. Just cut out both ends.
I use the lids- two ways- first with a regular can opener- clean carefully- and tape with painter’s tape or masking tape. That way when you store prepared mixes, the top is sealed with the can top and the plastic lid. It also keeps the granola together in the can with this movable lid. The second is with the side can opener- it pops the lid seal apart from the can. We have placed it on top and used that versatile duct tape.
We have used the cans for portable stoves, for a sand/salt containers for our cars. They are used at camp for portable water containers for fire prevention- adding a tiny bit of vegetable oil for bug control.
If you use mylar bags for storage- open both ends of a #10 can and use it as a funnel for the mylar bag… fits great!
Just for a start…
Some Good Ideas Will use Some of those.
We put them around seedlings in a fence line (climber beans, peas, etc.) so we can still run a weedeater down the fence line to control weeds without hurting our plants.
I have a few in the garage with the bottom screwed to the wall and one is used as a hose reel for the welder wires, the other to store tools for the welder.
all great ideas – thanks
loads of GR8 ideas~! thanks~!
and I wanted to add the tin can tin man I first saw at a fund raiser auction an they sold for 75$ each~!
soo cute… this one I found via google, is a bit different but still cute~!
the ones I saw at the auction were all connected with wire so they were movable an hung from the top of the funnel~ anywayz..enjoy~!
http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf43267298.tip.html
OH~
(they had a little red heart painted on the front too….
Those are super cute!
As children, my siblings and I took as many as we could find and stacked them into a pyramid shape. We then filled them all with water. They make great “castle” walls. It aways involved the wall getting knocked down and everyone getting wet. It made a great summertime activity.
I have an understanding that if you open the cans with a large commercial can opener it will cut it from the side and reinstall the lip so that it can be used again…. This is the kind that u c in commercial kitchens that r bolted to the counter and you have to pick it up to put the can under it and turn the crank…. I am still trying to verify this but if you look at pictures on some websites it sure looks like it does it to me…
If you use the side cutting can opener that takes the entire top off, you can re-seal the cans with new lids, but you need a sealer.
I remember putting three big cans together and making umbrella holders as a campfire girl
put a vertical cut down the side, put in a roll of toilet paper and thread it thru the opening. Put the top on and poke a hole in the center of both ends and thread a piece of cord thru it. there you have a toilet paper holder.
I’m going to build an herb tower with my cans.
Here’s another adorable crafty thing–Snowman hat decoration: http://www.allreddesign.net/2012/10/snowman-holiday-hat-tutorial.html
My husband and I have both recalled nightmarish traffic incidents when we were stuck in our vehicles for up to 7 hours at a time due to a bad highway accident with no food, water, or bathrooms. I’ve made emergency car kits from #10 cans that hold water or juice pouches, food bars, hard candy, glo-light sticks, handwarmers, emergency blanket, rain poncho, wet wipes, and small packets of tissues. Most items can be found at a dollar store and all fit inside the can. Most importantly, all items can all be removed from the can and when needed, the can may be used as an emergency toilet (that is what the tissues are for). Tie an orange bandana (dollar stores have these, too!) around the outside of the can to find it easily in the trunk and it can be used to signal distress by hanging it out of a rolled up car window if the vehicle needs to be left on the side of the road. Each of our teenaged children have been given one to keep in their vehicles, too.
I have found large cans useful for baking- crockpot or oven- especially nice for Multics grain and fruit breads.
I used the #10 cans to make “gift” cans for a church sale several years ago. Punch or drill a small hole on each side of the can, spray paint, paint or glue any design, then make a handle out of stiff wire and thread through the two holes for a handle. Stuff with tissue paper and small item gifts. Can be saved or reused over and over.
Lizard traps. Bury them so the top is ground level. Lizards can’t climb out and get trapped. Some bugs too. (it’s a boy thing)
keep it the kitchen with a lid for peeling to put in your compost
I love using #10 cans to bake bread in, it makes beautiful round loaves. I love giving these lovely loaves as Christmas gifts. I do however make sure that they are not the lined cans as often found with green beans and tomato products, I believe these are the ones that are contain bpa.
I always use around my tomato and pepper plants, also put around lilac sprouts, helps to keep the water so you don’t have to water everyday, also protects young plants from wind and storms.
Use them to cool down the rabbits. Fill with water and place in rabbit cages 2 or 3 in a row. The evaporation cools the cans and the rabbits will lay up against them. They can be frozen too for some extra cooling.
You forgot rocket stove, propane can forge, and wifi waveguide antenna. Those “can” be practical too.