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What Would You Do With It? Wednesday #2 Metal Can Lids




Thank you for stopping by today. This is the second week of my attempt to start a regular weekly blog hop entitled: "What Would You Do With It? Wednesdays"

The purpose of this blog hop is to share ideas in regard to upcycling materials, especially geared towards projects that children can participate in. I was inspired to do this after I posted a few ideas about what to do with Markers that Don't Work. I am continually inspired by the creativity of all of you folks out there, and thought it might be fun to feature an item each week.

This week's item is.... Metal Can Lids


Please add your family-friendly link below to give us some more ideas on how to upcycle your metal can lids!

Here is what we did with some of ours:

First off, we started most of our projects using metal can lids that came from frozen concentrated juice. (Before they switched to putting most of them in plastic). Recently, we have added to our collection with lids from canned food items. The reason we have been able to do this is that we now have a safety can opener that cuts the lids without creating a sharp edge. You can buy a wide variety of safety can openers, ours is this one from Tupperware.

We have made so many different things with these lids, here are just a few suggestions....



Make "Me" Magnets. Make sure that you supply a wide variety of different skin colored paints, let the children paint, glue, etc with a wide variety of materials to make a face that looks like them! We used heavy duty circle magnets glued to the back. (This one has seen better days... but you get the idea)



Turn them into Ladybugs or just paint them bright colors to make a wind chime!

Turn them into lovely Medallions! Drill or use a hammer and nail to pound a hole in them. Add a string and paint/stickers... etc... And ta da... You have a great medal to wear!


Use the "medallions" from above instead of a "potty chart" for our little ones who are toilet training. We start with a plain medal and children are allowed to add stickers each time they attempt to use the toilet. I try to buy stickers that are very shiny for this option. Unlike the paper potty charts that often get thrown away, our little ones are so proud of their medallions and they love to wear them and show off their accomplishment!

Use the "medallions" as name tags to be decorated at a workshop/conference :).

Comments

Ticia said…
I love the idea of the face magnets. I don't have a post for it, but we also used this to make ornaments with kids pictures on them for grandparents.
Deborah said…
So cute!! I have been saving plastic lids, egg cartons, and tissue rolls. I better add these to my list!!
Susan said…
I use the juice can lids in my preschool class for white glue. Each child gets a lid with a puddle of glue when we do art projects, they can dab it with their fingers or use a q-tip to dip in. We have used them for small amounts of paint to dip fingers in to make fingerprints. They are easy to reuse as the glue and paint wash of easily. It saves glue and paint and keeps the messiness to a minimum.
Country Living said…
Thought I would share my FB post here as well :)
You could use them to make snowman christmas ornaments :) Glue some together to make a whole snow man, and just use some as faces....it makes for a really cute tree or anywhere you use them!
Here is the Facebook feed of responses:

Jen 'Mattila' Laitala: We used a hammer and nail and did punch art on them and made them into tree ornaments.

Beth Thiele: wind chimes come to mind...not sure how pleasant they'd sound.

Jen 'Mattila' Laitala: We did windchimes too with the punch art ones but they didn't make much noise.

Carroll Ann Swanson: Loved the name tags we made with them at AIS, and I'm guessing they would make great necklaces too. Punch art or painted fridge magnets. Labels for cubbies, shelves, boxes etc, interchangeable with Velcro
backing.

Kristina Underhill: You could also use them as a mold for tissue paper and liquid starch 'stained glass' mobiles.

Kelly Morrison Hunter: Make a mobile!

Laura Hoyler: I use them as medallions for our Thanksgiving Feast- they glue colored rice and feathers on them and I hot glue them to yarn- instant Indian necklace!

Brandi Harris: You could use them to make snowman christmas ornaments :) Glue some together to make a whole snow man, and just use some as faces....it makes for a really cute tree or anywhere you use them!

Kisha Reid: You could make wind chimes.. or link them and make then into photo frames for a gift.

Marlene Korling: I love the creativity of all of you!

Mary Elizabeth Burdette: I put them with my magnets- they are lots of fun!

حلا صلاح wow i like i love love it>>i will make like this **very fanta6tek & more fun***

Deb Evans: I have a huge collection of these, finally something I can do with them.

Ashley Kenner: classroom management pieces

Kisha Reid: you can also put them in the science center and us them to explore magnets with.

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