"It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation" ~ Herman Melville - Upcycled Soda Can Rose Tutorial

I love a good recycling project, the only problem with this one is I live in NY and we can return our cans for 5 cents but when you can create something so cute out of them, who worries about 5 cents.  This is truly upcycling at its best from a 5 cent can, 2 - 3 soda can roses can be made, which in turn is creating something better out of something that could be thrown away!

Working at my normal workspace, our "coffee table" trunk in the living room, you will need:

- Clean, dry soda cans - preferably empty :), if not drink the soda first!
- Tin snips
- Scissors
- A Hammer
- A Nail
- A flower or round shape punch ( I'm using a seal punch b/c i like the scalloped edges and no shops around here had a flower, if you don't want to buy a punch you can always make a stencil out of cardboard, trace it and cut it out, this is a much longer process though)
- floral wire
- a scrap board

Step 1:  using the tin snips, cut the can in half

Step 2: Cut the top and the bottom off leaving a flat rectangular piece

Step 3: Using your punch, cut out the shapes from the rectangle (with my punch I can get anywhere from 5 - 8 cutouts per can)

Step 5: If you are using a non-flower punch, you will need to cut petals into it, so cut 5 or 6 cuts towards the center but do not disconnect.  Take the hammer and nail and on your scrap board put two holes in the center of each cut out.  

Step 5:  Cut a length of the floral wire, twice as long as you want your stem to be and run it through the 2 holes of 2 or 3 cutouts (depending on how big you want your rose), color side up works best too and then twist the wire tightly.  

Step 6:  Using the nail or a rounded pair of pliers, bring the first layer of petals up and round them to make the center of the flower

3.  For the next layer(s), bring every other petal to the top and round the edges using the nail or pliers, then round the remaining layers as well and you should be done!

Here are some of the decorations I have created with the soda can roses:

A banner created using the bottoms of larger bedsprings with a rose in every other small spring. 

I attached some roses to this bedspring wreath and painted the whole thing white.  If you do not like the look of the soda cans this method is wonderful b/c you would never know they were soda cans!