I love modern art, but don’t always love the price tag that comes with it. A few years ago, I did a segment on the show called DIY Soda Can Art. If you want to look that one up, it was from April 4, 2017. The project only cost about $10 to make, and I had seen similar art pieces going for $3,000. What!? Three grand? While I’m sure this art was probably made of the finest metal on earth (said in my best English accent), I used it as my inspiration, found a way to do it that combines soda cans with wire hangers on canvas, and saved lots of dollar bills y’all (that last part was with a southern accent)! I mean…I’m finding ways not to go crazy during these crazy times, so accents might come out!
I’ve been wanting to work with metal again, and since my recycling is piling up at the moment (and recycling centers are closed in my area), I thought I would take the soda cans and UPCYCLE instead of RE-cycle. If you are anything like me, you probably have a lot of empty soda cans around the house. Fetch those, and just a few tools, and turn them into a work of art! I’ll show you how easy it is to do this and wonderful it is to add décor to your home (that looks expensive)! Today, I will be showing you how to make various flowers out of aluminum cans.
You Will Need:
- Soda cans (empty and rinsed clean)
- Glue gun/glue sticks
- Paint brushes
- Paint (acrylic and/or spray paint)
- Can opener
- Tin snips
- Heavy duty scissors
- Wire cutter
- Card stock (or paper)
- Permanent marker
- Gloves (work gloves or gardening gloves will work – plastic gloves will not work)
- OPTIONAL: Beads and craft wire
How-To:
- Start by making sure your soda cans are clean and dry.
- Take your can opener, and cut off the top of the soda can. Set the tab of the soda aside because you WILL need to use these later.
- Using tin snips, make your initial cut in the soda can. Then with scissors, cut the can all the way down vertically.
- We are going to use the part of the soda can that is flat, meaning we cut it after the little bend in the can on the top and the bottom. So cut off the top and bottom of the can horizontally.
- Lay out your new piece of sheet metal. OPTIONAL: If you want to wait until the aluminum is flat, then leave your pieces under a few books overnight. Then in the morning, you will have flat pieces. This makes it easier to draw on, but it’s not 100% necessary.
- Make a template of what kind of flower you would like out of card stock or paper. Draw it out first, then cut it out with scissors. If you don’t trust your own drawing, find an image on the computer that you like and use that!
- Place them on the metal and trace around the template with a permanent marker.
- Cut out the pattern with scissors. Feel free to make as many layers as you would like and cut them out as well.
- Lay the bottom layer down, add hot glue to the middle and add your next layer. Keep going until you have all the layers of your flower complete.
- Add any color you would like to your flower. For some of my flowers, I used a chip brush dipped in acrylic paint. I then used paper towel to give it a sort of sponged-on look. For the larger flower I made, I took that outside and spray painted it. I then added a bit of color to the edges to give it a little depth.
- OPTIONAL: Add a bead to the center of the flower by attaching it with hot glue. For the larger flower, I took craft wire and a round bead to make it look like the stamen part of a larger flower. I spray painted that to look like the flower and attached it with hot glue.
- Remember I said to keep the tab of the soda can? Well this can be used to create a hanger on the back! Just turn your flower over, add hot glue and hold the tab in place until the glue sets up.
- Hang and enjoy!
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