Transform Empty Soup Cans Into Cute Garden Decor With This Easy DIY

If you're looking for a fun little craft project and don't have a lot of money to spend, we've got just the thing for you. Instead of throwing away old soup cans, save them, paint them, and transform them into adorable bugs, birds, or frogs for fun additions to the garden. All you need are some cans, paint, and a little bit of creativity. It's just one way to turn common household items from trash to garden treasure.

Sure, you can invest in little garden statues for pops of color between the flowers, but DIYing your own cute garden decor can be more satisfying. You could even recruit kids or grandkids to help with a fun little rainy-day project. This DIY craft doesn't require you to have the painting skills of Rembrandt, either, as it can be fairly straightforward. Of course, if you'd prefer to avoid paint but still want to upcycle old items for the yard, you can also try reusing thrifted glass for stunning decor and amazing effects in the garden.

But if you're excited about dusting off your paint brushes, this repurposing of old trash will brighten any garden bed. All you need are cans, acrylic paint, clear glue varnish, popsicle sticks, googly eyes, and glue. To get really creative, collect a variety of sizes and source a perch for them.

To start this project, first remove all labels and clean your cans. You may need a bit of warm, soapy water to help scrub off any stubborn paper or glue. Keep an eye out for any sharp edges as well. To prep the cans, YouTuber @hobbycraft suggests that you start by painting a coat of white paint on each, so the metal doesn't show through the paint.

Next, decide what you want to create. Regular-sized soup or veggie cans can be used to make butterflies, birds, bees, or grasshoppers, for example. If you happen to have a tuna can, you can make it into a frog. To make bees, paint the can yellow and then add black stripes. For the frog or grasshopper, paint the can green. For birds or butterflies, you can pick your preferred color. Add in final details, like a smiling mouth for your bee or spots for your bird. Once the paint is dry, apply a coat of clear glue, which could help protect your acrylic paint from the rain or snow.

While the final coat is drying, you can shape and decorate the popsicle sticks that can be used as grasshoppers' legs or birds' legs. If it turns out you have a lot of popsicle sticks left over, try the easy popsicle stick hack to attract more birds to the yard by making a birdhouse with them. You can wrap up the project by sticking the googly eyes on your cansand placing them in your yard.